


Lost in Translation

by ElsaFH (Elsa0806)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Engaged Akaashi Keiji/Miya Osamu, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Akaashi Keiji/Miya Osamu, Mutual Pining, Past Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Past Hinata Shouyou/Oikawa Tooru, Past Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu, Pining Miya Atsumu, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Volleyball Dorks in Love, no beta we die like men, recreational alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:47:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26720896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsa0806/pseuds/ElsaFH
Summary: What do you do when your motherkeepsasking you about a romantic life that doesn’t exist?According to Shouyou, pretend to date someone is the perfect solution. According to Atsumu, this arrangement will break his heart.According to both of them, they’re just idiots.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 206
Kudos: 477





	1. The happier twin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucisan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucisan/gifts).



> Well hello, everybody, and welcome to my first long fic! Whooo! I’m super excited to share this with you all. I’ve been going crazy over these past twenty five days trying to finish this fic and god _knows_ how much I’ve struggled. It’s hard to write, y’know?
> 
> But n e ways, here we are! First episode! Hell yeah!
> 
> Now for update schedules— I’ll upload an episode every Friday. “Eli why are you uploading this now” shush. Silence. I do not accept criticism on the topic.
> 
> See you all on the end notes!

There are a lot of things you can say about Miya Atsumu. The big majority of them go along the lines of how much of a prick he is. How much of a whimsical child he can become sometimes. And maybe one or two —or a bunch— about how he sees volleyball as the only thing that matters in his life. If he had to describe himself through one of the seven deadly sins, he’d probably go with greed; he always wants more, he’s never satisfied with his own improvement, and can’t wrap his head around the idea that there’s a limit on how good he can get. Volleyball _is_ his life and he won’t even try to deny it.

But there’s one thing no one can ever say. One thing he’ll never allow _anyone_ to say because it’s just not true— and that is that he doesn’t love his brother.

As Osamu stands up from the table with a cup of tea in his right hand, Atsumu’s eyes drift momentarily to the face beside his twin. Akaashi’s cheeks look flushed red and he knows this isn’t because of the weather; the room is warm but not warm enough for the temperature to cause such a reaction. It isn’t because he’s been drinking alcohol either— all the cups on the table are filled to the brim with tea.

He wonders for a moment what’s going on. And then Osamu answers his question before he can even voice it, as he always does.

“Mum, dad. ‘Tsumu. I’ve got big news.”

Atsumu blinks in his twin’s direction. He’s looking straight ahead, without fixing his gaze on anyone, and he catches a glimpse of the tension that seems to snap through Akaashi’s back.

“Oh?” his dad says, raising his eyebrows until deep wrinkles sink into his forehead. “You finally opening that shop in Tokyo?”

Akaashi chokes on his own spit.

“Now, darling,” his mother says, attracting Atsumu’s attention for a second. There’s a glint to her eyes that Atsumu isn’t really sure he likes as if she knows something they don’t. She always looks like she knows something they don’t; it’s infuriating. But now, as Osamu clears his throat to attract their attention back to him, it feels like it’s worse than ever. “Let Osamu give his good news.”

“Thanks, mum,” Osamu says, smiling slightly at her. He clears his throat again and Atsumu can’t help the way his leg starts to bounce under the table. He looks so nervous all of a sudden as if he can’t find the words to tell them this big news. “Kei and I— uh. Kei and I are getting married.”

There’s a silence that falls thick and hot over the table. It seems to drip like scalding hot caramel over Atsumu’s skin, sliding ever so slowly down his back, scorching its way while it’s pulled by gravity. Atsumu knows this is good— Osamu is so in love with Akaashi it’s almost disgusting to see. The way his eyes light up at the mere sight of his smile and the way he’s willing to do an extra effort with that branch in Tokyo just so his boyfriend can buy as much as he wants when he’s not in Hyougo. All of those things Osamu never seemed to be that fond of that ever since he started dating Akaashi felt like they’ve always been his favourite.

The silence surprises him. He doesn’t understand. Why are his parents looking at each other like that? Atsumu would _die_ if they decide that they’re gonna play the homophobic card now.

“Osamu, darling, I’m so happy for you!” his mother chirps after the silence stretches for a few unbearable seconds. It feels like her voice breaks a spell, probably one produced by sheer surprise, and then everything is set into motion as if that terrible moment had never happened. Something relaxes inside of Atsumu’s chest, the tension leaving his body with the feeling that all of his muscles will hurt in the morning. “When did this happen?”

“Congratulations, Osamu,” his father beams at his twin and the smile in his face is one Atsumu has never seen— there’s pride there, but there’s something mixed with it that he has some troubles putting his finger on. His eyes look a bit glossy before he blinks rapidly as if trying to swallow tears he doesn’t want to spill in front of his family. “I couldn’t be happier for you!”

Osamu visibly relaxes upon hearing his parents’ happiness for his engagement. Atsumu does, too, and as he releases the breath he didn’t know he was holding, he stands up from his chair and walks towards his twin, wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug that pushes the air out of Osamu’s lungs with a wheeze that would have made him laugh in other situation.

It’s such a weird situation, Atsumu thinks. To know that his twin, one of the persons he loves the most in the world, has found someone who can love him as much as he loves them— Atsumu isn’t one to let himself get carried by emotions regularly but _this_ is something he cannot ignore. There are tears in his eyes when his brother hugs him back, smiling against his shoulder, squeezing him with a strength that makes him think that his spine will snap in half.

He doesn’t need to tell him he’s happy for him. He doesn’t need to congratulate him. They share a bond no one can even dream to match, something that belongs to them and them only. He’s sure Osamu knows how delighted he is with the news and so he doesn’t say anything when he breaks the hug and claps him on the back, smiling from ear to ear when his twin puffs out a sound of pain.

His parents throw headfirst into congratulating the couple; his mother crushes Akaashi into a hug very similar to the one he just gave Osamu and his father claps both of them on the back, saying how happy he is for them. The Miya family gathers around Osamu and Akaashi and there are a few tears shed —by his father, no less— that earn a few barks of laughter. They drink to celebrate their engagement and while his mother starts to ask the typical questions about the wedding, the dates, the guests, and whatnot, Atsumu sits back down on his chair.

His twin is getting married. In terms of that stupid competition they’ve been having since they were in their third year of high school, he’s definitely the happier twin. Atsumu is happy with his life, with his career. With everything he’s accomplished up until this very second, but he knows there’s something missing, something he’s wanted for years but knows he can’t have.

Atsumu can let his twin have this. He can let him be the happier twin. For now, at least, while he gets rid of the feelings he didn’t ask to have in the first place.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and unlocks the screen, smiling at the picture of the Black Jackals that looks back at him from his wallpaper. He will never admit out loud that he always looks at a specific face whenever he sees that photo because that means he’s admitting all these feelings he didn’t ask to have. And Miya Atsumu doesn’t want what he didn’t ask for.

The messaging app is clogged with a lot of notifications he’s been ignoring ever since he got to his parents’ house. His friends, his teammates, and basically every person in his life has decided they want to talk to him in these two days he promised he’d try to avert his gaze from the damn thing. Atsumu is not one to admit things and he will never accept that he’s addicted to social media— especially because the only reason he got addicted to them is because it was the only mean he got to keep in touch with a certain something— or rather, a certain _someone_. So yeah, those two things he’ll never say out loud are basically connected but _please_ give him a break.

Atsumu opens Shouyou’s conversation and sends him a text saying that Osamu got engaged to Akaashi. He’s not surprised by the _very_ expressive line of emojis he gets back not even five seconds after and he isn’t surprised either by the tenderness that blooms in his chest and seems to clench his heart until it’s the size of a fist. He’s so far gone that at this point it’s funny.

« _Oh my god, Atsumu-san! Tell Osamu-san and Akaashi-san that I’m really happy for them!_ ».

He smiles to the screen. Even through text, Shouyou is somehow capable of irradiating this sunny aura that seems to draw him in like a magnet. He sometimes feels like a sunflower, chasing the sunlight that Shouyou seems to cast over him, basking him in warmth and things that he shouldn’t really feel. Things that he can’t help but feel anyway because he’s absolutely sure that everyone has been a bit in love with him at some point.

« _I’ll let them know_ ».

Atsumu locks the screen and returns the phone to his pocket, sticking his tongue out in apology when he catches his mother looking at him like he’s the cross of her existence. Her ‘no phones’ policy when sitting at the table used to drive him nuts when he was a teenager, but now it only sparks tenderness in him. It’s sad that he had to grow up and leave the nest to understand that his mother only wanted them to spend as much time together as they could and _while_ they could. As if she had somehow known that one day her sons would be successful enough to not live near her.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he apologizes, not really meaning it. His mother squints slightly, fixing her hazel eyes on him like she’s trying to find the lie behind his faux pouting. He raises his hands with his palms towards her as if trying to physically stop the incoming anger. “It was work stuff!”

“No work stuff allowed when we’re having dinner, _darling_ ,” she says, smiling sweetly. A shiver goes down Atsumu’s spine; that’s the smile she always uses to pretend she’s not mad. “ _Especially_ the day your brother announces his engagement.”

Atsumu nods, mock-saluting her from his chair. She squints a bit more, making him feel like he’s under an x-ray machine that can see absolutely everything about him, like he’s lying on a Petri dish, ready for the microscope that is to come.

“Great.”

* * *

“I’m really happy for you, you’ve no idea.”

“I can see that.”

“No, really, I am!”

“Aha.”

“You’re my favourite brother.”

“I’m your only brother.”

“You’ve no competition!”

“Are you trying to get me to help you wash the dishes?”

Atsumu freezes, chewing on his lower lip to stop the apologetic smile that tries to pull at the corners of his mouth. Since he was the last one to get to his parents’ home, the family decided it was his turn to wash the dishes after dinner. He thinks it’s unfair although these are the consequences of his own actions… just don’t let his mother catch him thinking that. She’s got some sort of radar to catch her sons’ deepest thoughts.

“You do remember I’m the oldest twin, right?” he says, scrubbing the fat out of a pan. He shouldn’t be doing this. What if he cuts himself while washing a knife? His hands are his _life_. “You should be the one washing the dishes.”

“I just announced I got engaged. I think that makes me ten years older.”

“That doesn’t make any sense—”

“Atsumu? Osamu?”

His mother’s voice interrupts whatever retort he was about to drop to counter his twin’s stupid argument to get off the hook with that brotherly solidarity thing he supposes siblings should have. They both startle a little, jumping on their spots before turning their gazes towards her, big doe eyes looking at her like they’ve never seen her in their life.

“Are you kids arguing again?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s relatively tall for a Japanese woman; the top of her head reaches a few centimetres above Atsumu’s shoulders and although she’s smaller than him, he still feels as small as a child whenever she raises her eyebrows in question.

“No, mum,” Osamu answers, smiling widely. Oh, he’s always known his way through their mother’s tough façade. Atsumu frowns. “Atsumu was just asking me to help him out with the dishes.”

“Oh,” she sighs, dropping her hands at each side of her body. She smiles up at them then and Atsumu feels like a huge weight has just been lifted off of his shoulders. “Go rescue your fiancé, Osamu. I think your father is gonna drive him insane if he keeps asking about his job.”

“Oh dear,” Osamu wheezes, rushing out of the kitchen with a few long strides. He stops beside her to press a tender kiss to the top of her head, smiling at her like he’s never done anything bad in his life, and then he’s gone to save Akaashi from whatever torture their father is putting him through.

His mother follows Osamu with a gaze full of tenderness until her eyes can’t see him anymore. She then turns to Atsumu, smiling as sweetly as she did for his brother, crossing the distance between them with certain sway to her steps that Atsumu recognizes as quickly as Shouyou’s minus tempo jump.

 _Oh fuck_.

“So,” she begins, extending her hand for him to hand her the sponge. “I wash and you dry?”

“Sounds good to me,” he answers, extending the sponge out for her to grab it. Once she’s done it and he’s drying his hands against one of the dishcloths, his mother hums like she’s trying to get his attention. Atsumu raises his eyebrows in question, grabbing a new, dry dishcloth from one of the drawers before standing beside her. “Shoot. You wanna say something, don’t you?”

She giggles like a five-year-old and Atsumu has to swallow down the urge to groan in desperation. Here it comes.

“Darling,” she starts, rubbing the hard side of the sponge against one of the dishes. Atsumu can see the stains of the curry they ate for dinner, “aren’t you happy for Osamu?”

Atsumu grabs one of the clean dishes and proceeds to rub the dishcloth against it. His eyes focus on his task as if trying to ignore his mother’s existence, but the persistent warmth coming from her frame doesn’t let him.

“’Course I am,” he answers, frowning slightly. What sort of question is that?

“I’m _delighted_ ,” his mother continues as if he hadn’t spoken at all. She stops rinsing the dish under the water, looking up at the ceiling like she’s immersed in some kind of fantasy that Atsumu doesn’t want to take part in at all, thank you. “I can’t believe my youngest son is getting married.”

“Well, he and Aka— _Keiji_ hit it off quite quickly, didn’t they?” Atsumu says. He grimaces at his poor attempt of small talk. Here he was, thinking he’d gotten better since he started hanging out with Shouyou. He’s either mistaken or his mother, as always, manages to put him on edge. “I hope they’re happy.”

“Oh, they will be. I’m sure of it,” his mother assures. There’s a ferocity to her words that he can’t help but feel in the very marrow of his bones; if there’s someone destined to the greatest happiness in the world —besides him, that is—, that someone is definitely Osamu. “Aren’t you a little jealous?”

Atsumu almost drops the dish. It’s perfectly dry at this point and his mother hasn’t washed a single thing from the pile sticking out from the soapy water in the sink. He knows this is just another of her ways to ask about his inexistent romantic partner and he probably should ask her to stop since the topic is starting to be a bit uncomfortable, especially when she begins with ‘isn’t someone out there that you like?’, but for some reason, he can’t bring himself to do it. This might be one of her tricks to ask about his —once again— inexistent love life, but he also knows she’s just trying to make sure he’s happy.

The whole ordeal is complicated. The subject is wearing him out— she’s been questioning him about his romantic life ever since Osamu started dating Akaashi five months ago. Five long, exhausting months ago. And he wants nothing but to come home and tell his mother that he’s dating the sun himself. But said sun isn’t interested in him in that way. He isn’t interested in anyone for that matter; Shouyou sleeps around, has a lot of fun having more one night stands than Atsumu thought possible for a human, and is too focused on volleyball to pay attention to a relationship. Breaking Atsumu’s heart in the process, too.

The perks of being one of his best friends, he supposes. If the friendzone was real and not a concept invented by the _nice guys_ to blame women for not liking them, he’d probably be the king.

“Nah, why would I be?” he pushes out, clearing his throat. He just needs to be patient. Tomorrow morning he’ll be travelling back to Tokyo, to his apartment and his life, and this whole thing will be in the past. He just wants to get over with the _you don’t have a romantic partner_ thing to get his mother out of his back. “You don’t think I like Keiji, right?”

“I don’t think he’s your type,” she hums, finally handing him the dish she’s been rinsing for at least five minutes. Atsumu starts to dry it the second his fingers press against it. “But you’re the oldest twin, Acchan. You should really start looking for a partner.”

Atsumu snorts and immediately gulps. That’s disrespectful. His mother, however, doesn’t seem to mind and keeps scrubbing the pan in between her hands.

“I’m married to my career, mum.”

 _Technically_ he isn’t lying. Keyword being _technically_.

“Your career won’t kiss you goodnight, Acchan.”

She only calls him _Acchan_ when she wants something. He’s twenty-three years old and he’s figured out that much. Atsumu doesn’t really know what she wants, though; does she want to hear that he’s been in love with the same person since he was seventeen? Does she want to hear about how much he’s dreamed of being that special someone in Shouyou’s life?

No. She just wants to hear he’s dating someone. As if that’s going to save him from his ridiculously long pining.

Maybe he should try. Give it a shot. Give someone the chance to make him forget about Shouyou.

Ah, no. He tried that already. Shinsuke suffered because of his attempt to forget someone he hadn’t even talked to back then. And he promised himself he would never hurt someone like that ever again. Shinsuke didn’t deserve to be the rebound. No one does.

“I’m okay with that,” he whispers a few seconds later. He hadn’t even noticed the water isn’t running anymore. “Not having someone to kiss me goodnight, I mean.”

“Atsumu, darling, are you okay?” his mother asks, drying her hands against her very expensive skirt. He wants to protest about that— his mother loves clothes. She shouldn’t be doing that, ruining such a pretty piece of cloth with soapy, fatty water from the dishes. “If it’s—”

“Hanako?”

His father’s voice interrupts whatever his mother was about to ask and Atsumu lets go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He hadn’t realized how his thoughts were showing on his face; the last thing he wants is to worry his mother with his unrequited feelings. He hasn’t talked about them with anyone but Shinsuke, and that was during his last year of high school. It’s been too long and he knows he should rant about it with someone, but the only person he trusts enough to do so is exactly the same person that makes him feel like this.

He could always try to talk to Omi about it, but he knows Omi will deck him if he even thinks about it. Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t seem to enjoy relating to others beyond volleyball.

“Ah, dear,” she says, smiling. His mother turns around, casting a worried yet fleeting look towards Atsumu as if trying to guess if he still feels bad about their conversation. “What happened with Keiji-kun?”

“He and Osamu went to bed,” he answers, looking from her to Atsumu. He connects the dots in a few seconds and it’s almost funny to see the change in his expression. It goes from doubtful to disapproval in the blink of an eye and Atsumu always giggles at the sight of his mother looking like a child that’s been caught doing something they shouldn’t. “Were you pestering Atsumu about his romantic life _again_?”

“I was just asking!”

“ _Hanako_. We’ve talked about this.”

“It’s alright, dad,” Atsumu laughs. He finishes drying the dish, placing it on top of the other. “Mum’s just worried I don’t have someone to kiss me goodnight.”

“Acchan!”

His father sighs in exhaustion, massaging his temples with his fingertips in circular motions that seem to express how tired he is about the whole situation. Atsumu wants to laugh at it; he isn’t the one putting up with that conversation. He can’t count the times his mother has asked about his romantic life —or lack thereof— through the phone.

“It’s alright, Atsumu. Your mother and I will finish washing the dishes. You can go to bed if you want.”

“Awesome!” Atsumu drops the dishcloth over the counter, drying his hands against his jeans before placing a kiss on top of his mother’s head. “I’m clocking off, then. See you all tomorrow before I leave.”

He says his goodbyes and rushes out of the kitchen, almost running towards his old room. He hasn’t felt this light since he-can’t-remember-when, but the fact that his father got him off of the hook makes him think that maybe there’s still some justice in the world. Why else would he be rescued from answering questions he doesn’t want to answer?

Atsumu closes the door softly behind him once he’s inside his room and starts getting undressed on his way to the bed. He’ll regret the disaster in the morning when he has to get up early to take the train back to Tokyo, but as long as he is concerned _now_ , he just wants to lie down and sleep. He’s glad there’s no practise tomorrow because he doesn’t think he’d be able to make it in one piece there; he’s bone-tired from the trip and his lazy self only wants to sleep in.

He slides under the covers, pulling from them until he’s covered to his ears. A content sigh leaves his mouth while he wriggles on the mattress, trying to get as comfortable as he can in this bed that used to adapt to his body so well when he was younger but now feels somewhat foreign to the person he currently is.

He can hear his brother snoring softly from the other room, separated just by a thin wall that allowed them to have long conversations when they were teenagers and were too excited to sleep before the tournaments they participated in. Atsumu remembers their little talk before the national tournament during their second year, the expectations they had about their first game against Karasuno and all the things he knew about their setter, Kageyama Tobio.

Atsumu remembers, too, the feeling of slight disappointment when he met Hinata Shouyou for the first time. Ever since the All Youth Japan and Tobio’s reaction to Hoshiumi’s jump, he’d expected some spectacular teammate. Something that would blow his mind away the moment he met him.

What he got, however, was a tiny number ten with a wild mop of orange hair and a declaration coming from his own setter about how much he sucked. Atsumu had wanted to crush them all under the sole of his volleyball shoes as if trying to show the world his worth and how entitled he was to be stepping on that scenario.

He’d been so, _so_ wrong. He’d never expected Shouyou to be like that, to jump even higher than he’d seen him doing for the first time. It was like a whole new world opening up in front of his eyes, slapping him across the face with all the possibilities he’d never thought he’d want to explore. The longing for something unknown he hadn’t experienced right until that exact second when Shouyou forgot to spike the set because he was too busy enjoying the way the jump felt.

The fact that he’s been head over heels for Shouyou ever since then shouldn’t surprise him at this point, but it still does. It’s frustrating in some way, to know that the object of his affection is too busy loving something else to even look at him. He’d never felt jealous of volleyball before yet here he is, thinking that maybe if one of them wasn’t so obsessed with it, he might have a chance.

Atsumu turns on the bed, lying on his right side to curl up in a ball. He’s not trying to make himself small or anything— he just wants to be able to ignore the memories this house and this room bring him by focusing all his attention the slow, steady beating of his heart.

Closing his eyes, Atsumu tries to fall asleep, tries to make himself stop thinking of Shouyou. Of his smile, of the snake-like eyes he always shows when there’s some strong opponent he’s eager to defeat. If Hinata Shouyou could, Atsumu is sure he’d even fight fate itself. Hell, he’s been doing it before he even _met him_. That has to mean something regarding his feelings towards him.

“Shut up and fall asleep.”


	2. An act of service

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henlo! Tis I, Eli, coming at ya with a new episode. It's Friday here already, so let's goooooooo
> 
> Yes I was excited to post the second episode, don't mind me. But nevermind that, how we feeling about Haikyuu!! coming back today? I'M VIBRATING, SEND HELP. 
> 
> Thank you all SO MUCH for your comments and the rts on Twitter! I'm super duper happy with the response in both sites. I didn't expect it skdjfhksjd I'm flattered ;_____;
> 
> Anyway, here's today's episode! I will be adding more tags if needed while I upload the new episodes. Don't wanna spoil it all for you. 
> 
> Without further ado, the episode! See ya on the end notes! 

“You should really come to visit us more often,” his mother says, pouting like a five-year-old. Atsumu laughs under his breath, a sleepy sound that feels raspy in his throat while he slings one arm around her shoulders and squeezes her lightly against his chest. “You kids are so ingrate.”

“ _Mum_ ,” he complains, trying to not roll his eyes and failing miserably. “You know I’m busy.”

“Well, you can come when you’re not busy,” she singsongs, patting him affectionately on the back. “With someone special, too.”

“Jesus, mum,” he laughs, breaking the hug to give her a tired look. She smiles softly, tiny wrinkles sinking around the exterior corner of her eyelids. It’s almost a gentle reminder of how time passes even for the people he never thought it would. “Do you really want those to be the last words you say to your son while he goes away for god knows how long?”

She puffs out a sigh.

“You’re as dramatic as always, Atsumu.”

He smiles widely before kissing her on the cheek one last time, shaking his father’s hand before he throws his handbag inside of the taxi, closing the door behind him once he’s comfortable sitting on the backseat. His parents wave their hands at him while he instructs the driver to start the engine, a soft smile replacing the one that went from ear to ear.

It’s going to be a few months before he comes back to his parents’ house, which surprisingly doesn’t feel like his own anymore. He’s gotten used to the solitude of his apartment, to go entire afternoons wearing nothing but his birthday suit. To not have other rules besides the ones he believes are useful for himself, to not have to answer to anyone but the neighbours that do not appreciate rock playing as high as the speakers can go during the weekends. He’s used to his freedom, one that he wouldn’t trade for anything in this world, not even the warmth of having someone else taking care of him.

Atsumu presses his back against the backrest and lets out a small sigh of exhaustion. Being in his apartment also means no one is going to interrogate him about his love life or lack thereof. It means his mother doesn’t have any meanings —besides the phone, which he can decide to not answer— to ask uncomfortable questions.

He needs to get her off of his back _now_ before the stress starts to freak him out and affect the only thing he’d never let his personal life get in the way of: volleyball.

The only way to get her to stop is… getting a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or someone who’s willing to pretend to be his romantic partner, someone he trusts enough —and someone who trusts him enough— to get into an arrangement that will probably not get them any benefit. Just for the sake of saving his tired, stressed ass.

The idea of asking Omi crosses his mind like a flash but he throws it into the trash bin so fast he almost feels dizzy because of the mental image. Two things would happen if he decided to be stupid enough to ask Sakusa Kiyoomi to be his fake boyfriend: one, he’d get absolutely decked, so bad he probably would never be able to play volleyball again. Two, he probably will get publicly ridiculed and that is not something Atsumu wants to go through, thank you very much. Slipping and falling during that fan meeting was enough embarrassment for a life and a half and he sincerely suspects even his reincarnation will remember such an incident.

Bokuto? Atsumu scrunches his nose. Nah. That would feel like he’s trying to make Akaashi jealous, since he’s his ex and all that jazz, and would also make it seem like he has some sort of romantic interest in his brother’s fiancé. He doesn’t really want to get any close to that thing they had going on before Akaashi met Osamu, and he absolutely doesn’t want to go near his twin’s relationship. He’s a jerk but he’s not _that much_ of a jerk.

He could always ask Shinsuke since his mother always seemed very fond of him, but the shame of what he did when he was eighteen still chases him like a rabid dog. The memories of his mistakes with someone as good as Kita Shinsuke are always there, reminding him of his selfishness like cold fingers running down his back, popping each vertebra like it’s bubble wrap. He doesn’t want to go near that, either. It’s a constant reminder of how far he’s willing to go to get rid of his unrequited feelings.

He shows up late for the next day’s practice and gets scolded by Coach Foster. Something along the lines of being too old to be this irresponsible, something about him needing to own up to the fact that he’s a professional and that him being a volleyball player doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to respect his position in the same way he’d do if he was a salaryman. Atsumu knows all of this and albeit being unable to say he’d never gotten there late, he is _not_ in the mood to get nagged because of the awful traffic that morning.

Atsumu doesn’t say anything, though. He just nods and waits for the coach to tell him he’s allowed to go change and start practising. The amount of steam he needs to blow off is _unbelievable_ and he knows there’s nothing better to do so than being able to play the sport he loves almost as much as he loves—

Sappy thoughts. Not allowed.

As expected, the practice goes _awfully_. Even Inunaki, who —Atsumu is sure— antagonizes him for the sake of it _,_ refrains from making fun of him. That’s just how bad his day at work goes; he probably didn’t get benched because they need to train for the upcoming Schweiden Adlers match and having their titular setter looking from the sidelines is just _bad_. Atsumu is mortified. He promised himself that his personal life would never get in the way of his professional career, yet here he is, looking grumpy and tired and all sorts of depressed because his tosses just weren’t on point today.

He’s sitting on one of the benches in the locker room, looking as bad as that faithful time when he slipped in a fan meeting. Inunaki looks at him from one of the corners, and Atsumu doesn’t know if he pities him or wants to make fun of him. He does neither, however, and just turns his back towards him as if to give him some privacy for his sulking.

Good. Atsumu is thankful.

“Atsumu-san?”

Atsumu whines to himself. He’s not ready to deal with half his current problem. He can’t just ignore him, though, because this is _Shouyou_ , one of his best friends, and the fact that he knows about how understanding he’d be if he decided to do it just makes everything worse. Why did he have to fall in love with him? Why did he have to be able to fulfil his promise after all these years? It was good just looking from afar— he was doing _okay_. He had been able to keep his feelings at bay. But now, having him so close, having the _privilege_ of being one of his friends… that’s sometimes too much for Atsumu to handle it.

“Yes, Shouyou-kun?” he says, pretending he hadn’t been sulking like the drama queen he is just a few seconds ago.

“Are you okay?” Shouyou asks, tilting his head to the side like a curious little bird. It’s funny that sometimes Atsumu thinks of a sparrow whenever he behaves like this, and the next second he’s nothing but a deadly crow with a shiny, sharp beak, ready to eat your eyes out of your skull. “You seemed out of it today.”

“It’s nothing,” he lies, too fast and to cheerfully. Shouyou raises his eyebrows, a little taken aback by his answer and Atsumu has to contain the burning need of massaging his temples to stop the growing headache stretching its fingers across his brain. “I— I just had a complicated weekend, that’s all.”

He grimaces, knowing exactly what is to come before Shouyou even opens his mouth.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 _There it is_.

“Ah,” he sighs, massaging his fringe in between his thumb and index finger. Why is Shouyou so nice? “If you’re willing to listen…”

“Of course I am!” Shouyou chirps, smiling widely. Atsumu drops his hand to his lap, fixing his hazel eyes on the amber ones that are looking him like he’s silly for just suggesting that he’s faking his interest. Something clenches inside of his chest when his heart skips a beat at the sight. He’s just too damn beautiful for his own good. Or Atsumu's, for that matter. “You’re my friend and I’ll do whatever it takes to help! That if you want my help, of course.”

 _Ah, Shouyou-kun… you’re too good to me_.

Atsumu presses his lips into a thin, pale line filled with uncertainty. His eyes follow Shouyou as he takes a few short strides to sit down by his side, turning his body towards him to dedicate him all of his attention. He crisscrosses his legs, leaning a bit to the front as if to show him there’s nothing else in the world that matters more than Atsumu.

He sighs. How is it possible to explain his problem to the exact same person that’s half of it?

“My mum’s been pestering me about my romantic life,” he begins, imitating Shouyou by turning his body towards him. Atsumu crosses his left leg over the right, pressing his back against the locker behind him. “She wants me to find a _romantic partner_.”

Shouyou giggles under his breath, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth to hide the kilometric smile that pulls at the corners of his lips. Atsumu almost goes blind. Looking at him is like looking at the sun itself and he’s still not used to the brightness that surrounds him.

“I bet it’s worse now that Osamu-san is getting married,” Shouyou guesses, dropping his hand. His fingers intertwine over the gap between his thighs and Atsumu can’t help to follow the motion until his fingertips are pressed against the back of his hands. “Is she being too pushy?” 

“She’s not… _pushy_ ,” Atsumu frowns, not really knowing if that’s the correct word to describe her attitude regarding his lack of a partner. A sigh leaves his lips and Shouyou squints slightly, tiny wrinkles sinking into the skin at each side of the outer angle of his eyelids. “She’s… insistent.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?”

“It’d be the same if she introduced me to people,” he corrects. He can’t believe he’s defending his mother’s attitude. He knows he’s right, though; she just seems overly interested. If she really wanted to go down the pushy road, she’d probably introduce him to all the daughters of her workmates. “She doesn’t do that. She just… asks a lot.”

“Is it stressing you out?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“That’s so uncomfortable, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou says. He sounds _sorry_ and Atsumu wants nothing but to take everything back. The last thing he wants is for Shouyou to worry about problems that aren’t his. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay, I guess,” Atsumu lies, shrugging. “That’s what mothers do, ain’t it?”

A burst of tired laughter leaves Shouyou’s mouth, a sound Atsumu isn’t really sure he likes. Atsumu still has to get to terms with the idea that he won’t always be happy, that there will be some days when Shouyou just isn’t feeling okay. As shocking as that sounds, he’s as human as Atsumu himself, even if he looks and feels like pure sunshine almost all the time.

“Ah… yeah. Mine started to ask about my girlfriend ever since Natsu told her she likes a boy.”

Atsumu feels old all of a sudden. Natsu likes boys already, huh?

“Have you tried talking to her?” Shouyou questions after a few seconds of comfortable silence.

Atsumu blinks. He’s never really thought of talking to her about the issue, about telling her to stop asking him about a romantic life that simply does not exist and will not exist in a very long time, or at least until he’s able to get rid of his feelings for Shouyou. The idea seems interesting, almost too attractive to be true.

There is a ray of hope piercing through the dramatic grey clouds he’s conjured in this metaphorical image he projects his life onto, but the clouds close again when he thinks about how bad she would feel if he told her she’s been stressing him out with her questions. He would rather go through a very uncomfortable period of intense interrogation than making her feel sad.

“She’d just feel bad about making _me_ feel bad,” he sighs, feeling suddenly discouraged.

Shouyou hums low in his throat, pressing his thumb against his power lip while his brows furrow in the middle of his forehead. He seems to be far, far away from Atsumu as if he’s deep in thought. Too deep for him to be able to reach him without travelling across the whole universe to wrap his hand around his wrist.

Amber eyes fix on him then, almost drawing the lines that form his frame, Shouyou’s irises outlining the features of Atsumu’s face like he wants to memorize them. Engrave them in stone to turn him into an immortal statue no one will ever be able to forget.

Atsumu fidgets under Shouyou’s gaze. It’s almost too intense for him to not react.

 _If I was dating him I wouldn’t have all of these problems_.

“Atsumu-san, why don’t you pretend to date someone? For a few months, until your mum calms down.”

Shouyou’s voice interrupts his line of thinking, pushing him into a reality where the person that’s the half of his problem is trying to look for a solution for them.

“Pretend… to date someone?” Atsumu repeats, dumbfounded. Isn’t it a bit too complicated? It would be better if he was honest with his mother and told her that her questions are starting to put him on edge. “As in pretending to be disgustingly in love with someone?”

He tried that once. It didn’t work out. And he hurt Shinsuke in the process.

“Yeah! That might work!” Shouyou chirps, smiling from ear to ear. Atsumu loves that smile. “She’ll stop asking about your partner and won’t ask after the ‘break up’ because it’s painful to talk about those things.”

Atsumu considers it for a moment. He doesn’t need to hurt anyone in this hypothetical process of pretending to date to get his mother out of his back; as long as the _terms_ of this stupid _contract_ are perfectly clear for both of them, the chances of someone getting hurt are really low. He just needs to find someone who he can trust and someone who trusts him enough to be willing to go through all the trouble.

It’s complicated, more than asking his mother to stop, but he wouldn’t be hurting her in the process either. Just a few months of making out with someone, pretending to go on dates, and being all lovey-dovey. He can get through that.

“Shouyou-kun, you’re a genius.”

They both startle when the door of a locker slams against the metallic frame. Two pairs of eyes rise from each other and fix on the source of the sound, finding the tall frame of Omi looking at them like they’re the worst thing he’s ever encountered in his life. His black irises go from Shouyou to Atsumu repeatedly, scanning their features as if trying to find a reason to not deck them right then and there. Atsumu can see his pursed lips even through the white facemask.

“Oh, Omi-san!” Shouyou greets, raising his hand to wave at him. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Omi-kun, I didn’t know you were listening,” Atsumu gulps, smiling awkwardly. The last person he wanted to hear about his problem was Omi. He’ll just make fun of him.

“I wasn’t. My locker is right here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Atsumu looks at Omi through the corner of his eyes, trying to see if he’s still listening to their conversation. By the looks of it, he’s ready with whatever he was doing in his locker, and he probably should wait for him to disappear out of the door before revisiting the issue at hand.

Shouyou, however, seems to have a different idea.

“Well, thank you, Atsumu-san!” he giggles, running his right hand through his unruly hair. Atsumu’s eyes avert from Omi’s frame to follow the motion and he wonders for a moment if the orange locks are as soft as they seem. “If you think that’s a good idea…”

“Now I just need someone to… fake-date,” he half-jokes, half muses.

“That someone needs to be close to you and you need to trust each other enough to not catch feelings,” Shouyou whispers, scrunching his nose in deep thought. A bright idea seems to pop up into his head, amber eyes opening enough to double their size while he hits the palm of his left hand with his right turned into a fist. The gesture puts a tender expression on Atsumu’s face, his thoughts focusing on Shouyou and Shouyou only. When he looks like that, Atsumu feels like he doesn’t care about Omi making fun of him for his problem. “Why don’t you ask Omi-san?”

Atsumu and Omi choke on their own breaths at the same time. Omi turns towards them with a deadly look on his black eyes, and something that looks like a vein popping on his forehead makes Atsumu think that maybe he’s about to have a heart attack. The mere idea of fake-dating Atsumu _shouldn’t_ be awful enough to grant a reaction like that, but one never knows with Sakusa Kiyoomi.

“Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu begins, feeling himself going pale like an inverse wave of fever spreading through his face. It’s a weird feeling and it’s very akin to _fear_. “If you want me dead, just tell me right away.”

Omi sighs under his breath, looking suddenly very tired. The pained sound attracts both Atsumu’s and Shouyou’s attention, and while the latter blinks in Omi’s direction as if he’s waiting for some suggestions to help Atsumu’s case, he thinks that Omi is just trying really hard not to murder them.

“Hinata,” Omi calls. Shouyou’s shoulders are tense as he straightens his back like a soldier that’s about to be scolded by his superior. “Why don’t _you_ pretend to date Miya?”

The suggestion floats over their heads for a few uncomfortable seconds that seem to stretch into eternity, refusing to fall from the clock to crash against nothingness. It’s very akin to those fractions of a second when the ball stops mid-air during a jump serve.

“M-Me?” Shouyou stammers, blinking owlishly. Atsumu grimaces when he thinks that maybe the idea grosses him out. He wouldn’t blame him, though; people usually feel grosses out when someone suggests they should date one of their friends. It’s like being a friend automatically puts them out of the possible date poll. “Why me?”

“You’re close to Miya and I bet his family will love you. You got half the country idiotized. Idiotizing them won’t be that hard.”

_Is that even a word? Did he just conjugate a word he made up?_

Atsumu feels like there’s an insult hidden in between his words —those that are real and those that Omi invented—, but he’s too busy paying attention to the blush that creeps its way up Shouyou’s cheeks to try and find it. The blush slides across Shouyou’s skin like the soft pink that paints the horizon, preceding the sunset while red reaches out its fingers in a beautiful prelude to the darkness of the night.

He considers it for a moment; there’s no one else in the world he trusts enough to do something like this. The idea that he’ll try to forget Shouyou through pretending to date him _hurts_ to even think about, but he doubts he’ll find someone to help him out with something like this.

If Shouyou accepts… if Shouyou accepts, maybe Atsumu can have a taste of what he knows he won’t be granted. Ever. The mere thought of having the privilege of holding Shouyou in the same way all of his one-night stands have done sends shivers down his spine; he’s so far gone he doesn’t care if it’s fake, if his feelings are still unrequited. He’ll regret this later when it all comes to an end and he has no saying on the topic because it was never true in the first place, but he’s willing to pay the price if that means he’ll get a taste of that he’s been yearning for since he was seventeen.

“What do you think?” he asks, pretending his heart isn’t hammering away in his chest, that he doesn’t want nothing but for Shouyou to accept this ridiculous plan Omi just suggested.

“What do I—?!” Shouyou chokes on his words and coughs a little, dabbing at his mouth to press his lips against the inside of his elbow while his coughing fit passes. Once it does, his eyes fix on Atsumu’s like it’s the first time he’s seen him. “Atsumu-san, you do realize we’ll have to do… _couple things_ , right?”

“Well, I trust you,” Atsumu says, shrugging like he doesn’t care. The thing is, he cares. _A whole lot_.

 _I don’t trust myself to not take advantage of this, though_.

The blush in Shouyou’s cheeks darkens a little, going from a cute pink to a furious red that makes the sirens in Atsumu’s head go off. What if he’s too uncomfortable to say no? What if the idea grosses him out too much and he’s just too nice to say it out loud? The thought makes Atsumu feel nauseated, bile kicking at the back of his throat; it leaves an uncomfortable feeling behind, sore and taut like he has some sort of infection.

“I— I don’t know—” he begins to stammer, clearing his throat in the middle of his sentence to see if he’s able to speak. Atsumu raises his eyebrows, swallowing back the words that would tell Shouyou that this is just a joke, that he would never put him through something as awful as pretending to date him. Not if he doesn’t want to, that is. “I just—”

“Jesus Christ,” Omi half hisses, half sighs. “I’m done.”

Omi throws his hands up in the air as if he’s given up on the entirety of humanity itself, slinging his bag over his shoulder before starting to walk towards the exit of the locker room. He doesn’t say anything before storming out, shutting the door behind his back with the dry, loud _clank_ of the metal smashing against the frame. It seems that Omi is in the mood of smashing doors in general today.

“Shouyou-kun?” Atsumu calls, leaning in a bit. He’s on the edge of his personal space, and he wants nothing but to reach out and cradle Shouyou’s face in between his hands, slide his thumbs over the high of his cheekbones to see if he can erase the furious blush with his fingertips. He does not do this. “You okay there?”

“Yeah!” Shouyou pushes out, too quickly to be true. Atsumu grimaces at both the volume of his voice and the fact that he’s clearly lying. “Y-Yeah, I’m just…”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I’m in.”

“Excuse me?”

Shouyou blinks, long, orange eyelashes almost touching his cheeks when his eyelids flutter like butterflies. Atsumu feels his chest tightening once more; he’s a beautiful sight.

“I’ll do it,” he says, smiling. He’s still blushed a deep red and Atsumu thinks he can almost hear his rabbit-like pulse beating furiously in the vein of his neck, but he looks as determined as he looks when he’s on the court. “I’ll fake-date you to get your mother out of your back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha Atsumu suffering because Shouyou is too damn good for his own wellbeing. Don't worry bby I suffer because of that, too. 
> 
> I hope you liked today's episode! As always, you can come scream and me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_) Warning: I WILL scream because of the episode. If you're not ready for it, don't follow u__________u
> 
> That's all for today! See you all again next Friday! Have a great weekend! 


	3. Foolish fool fooling himself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! It's time for an update because I say so. And because I'm too hyped for today's episode and I'm basically vibrating and I can't contain my excitement. I _will_ scream, don't test me. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for all the comments and love I've gotten either here or on Twitter! I'm so happy that you all like my fic <3 
> 
> As always, enjoy uwu See you at the end notes! 

Atsumu doesn’t remember having been this nervous in his whole life. There have been a lot of situations where he’s felt the unpleasant lick of nervousness tying knots all through his stomach, sending his heart to beat at the back of his throat, and making his knees feel weak with the idea that they’re going to give out underneath the weight of his body.

He’s been able to handle it before, though. But now, as he looks at Shouyou sitting right in front of him on the couch, with this flush that seems to reach the tip of his ears and slides down his neck and under the black shirt that hugs his muscles in a way he’s sure it should be illegal, Atsumu is not so sure he’s going to make it out of this alive.

“Okay,” Atsumu begins, slowly, the two syllables rolling off of his tongue as if he’s tasting them. They feel foreign in his mouth despite being the language he’s been speaking for twenty-three years. “So, uhm. How are we gonna do this?”

“Well… first off,” Shouyou says. He chokes on his own saliva and coughs at the inside of his elbow, tying with all his might to not look at Atsumu in the eyes. He relates to that _so bad_. He doesn’t even know what to do with himself. “Public displays of affection?”

“PDA?” Atsumu repeats, blinking stupidly. “What about it?”

“We need to make them believe we’re dating, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou whines. He looks like he could burst into flames in the blink of an eye. “There needs to be… PDA.”

“Oh.”

 _Public displays of affection_ , he repeats mentally. The words seem to crumble over his brain, sprinkling over it with the same feeling of stepping on broken glass. That means he’ll have— he’ll _get_ to hug Shouyou, to take his hand, to _kiss him_ , and it’s suddenly too much for him to handle it. He’s about to tap out of a deal that isn’t even three hours old, to tell Shouyou that they shouldn’t be doing this. That he’ll find a way to get his mother off of his back. But he seems as determined as he looks on the court and Atsumu feels bad about telling him that their deal is over. Hinata Shouyou has promised to do something and not even hell itself would hold him back from fulfilling his promise.

“So, I was, uh— _thinking_ that maybe we should… practice…?”

“Practice?” Atsumu repeats. This entire conversation seems to find its foundations on him repeating what Shouyou says but at this point, he isn’t sure his brain is really functioning. No one can blame him, right? The guy he’s been in love with since he was seventeen is currently suggesting they should _touch_ each other, _kiss_ each other, and he knows this doesn’t really mean anything to Shouyou, but it means the world to him and he doesn’t know how to process this whole thing. “As in… kissing and stuff?”

“Yeah,” Shouyou says, clearing his throat. He wriggles in his position, sliding his legs underneath his body to sit on his calves in the traditional —and very ceremonial— Japanese sitting position. His hands press flat against his thighs, and the detail of him rubbing his palms against the hem of the grey sweatpants doesn’t go unnoticed to Atsumu. It looks like he’s drying the sweats of his skin. “To not look _surprised_ when we have to do it in public.”

“Are you sure?” Atsumu asks, slightly scrunching his nose. The tension in Shouyou’s shoulders is starting to worry him; the fact that he looks so uncomfortable with the idea of physical contact —beyond a high-five or an arms slung over his shoulder when he’s congratulating him for a good toss— makes Atsumu’s insides churn unpleasantly. The last thing he wants is to push him into doing something he doesn’t want to. “You don’t have to do this, y’know?”

“Oh, I know,” he says, smiling broadly. His slips stretch so much that it must be painful and as always, his smile is blinding. Atsumu has to contain the burning need of putting his hand in front of his eyes to put a screen between the light that seems to come from him and his eyes to avoid losing his eyesight. “But I want to help you. I don’t mind doing this, Atsumu-san. It’s okay!”

Atsumu bites the inside of his cheek until he can feel his teeth piercing the soft, delicate skin. He tastes the flavour of his own blood coating his tongue, salty and coppery like old pennies in his mouth. Shouyou is just too fucking nice for his own good sometimes and Atsumu isn’t strong enough to stop himself from taking advantage of this situation.

“Okay,” he manages to push out, choking on the syllables. “Let’s set our boundaries, then.”

Shouyou hums low in his throat, averting his gaze from Atsumu to fix it on his lap. He intertwines his fingers, pressing his fingertips against the back of his hands until his nails become a yellowy white that almost makes Atsumu reach out and stop him from doing that. He might hurt himself.

“Tongue,” he manages to say a few seconds later.

Atsumu raises his eyebrows in question, tilting his head to the side while confusion settles over his features.

“What about it?”

“Let’s avoid using the tongue.”

He wants to ask why. He also wants this to be _real_ and not a façade he’s using to trick his mother into believing he finally has a romantic partner. He pretty much wants all of Shouyou but he’s too scared to ask, too scared of the rejection he’ll get if he ever musters enough courage to tell him how he really feels.

“Sounds good to me,” Atsumu lies through his teeth, with his entire chest. It physically hurts him to spit such bullshit, but he knows it’s for the better. He can’t afford honesty when his friendship with Shouyou is on the line. “We also shouldn’t touch each other besides hugging, too.”

Shouyou swallows.

“Yeah. I agree.”

“Cool.”

Silence falls between them like a pair of arms pushing them both as far of the other as physically possible. He knows he can touch Shouyou if he just reaches out, that he can let his fingers trace the line of his jaw and the high of his cheekbones. The silence surrounding them, though, makes him feel like he’s standing on the shore of the other side of the world, squinting worthlessly to see if he manages to catch a glimpse of him.

Atsumu sucks in a breath that seems to whistle in his throat, which feels bone-dry and almost causes him physical pain when the idea of ground glass rasping behind his tongue pops up into his mind. He’s never been this _thirsty_ before.

Shouyou clears his throat, attracting Atsumu's attention to his face once again. The blush has subdued just a little, enough for Atsumu to be able to see the dusting of freckles over his cheeks and the fringe of his nose, almost like brown sugar sprinkled on top of a cake.

He wants to smack his face against the dinner table. What kind of sappy, stupid thought was that?

“Shall we… try?”

Atsumu can’t help but laugh at the formality of his question. It’s like a single second to breathe in cool, refreshing air, to put some of his thoughts in order before diving into something that will surely break his heart once it comes to an end. Because it will and it will probably destroy the very foundations of his feelings until he either hates Shouyou with every fibre of his being or can’t stop loving him for the rest of his life.

The thing is he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t mind if Shouyou breaks his heart. The only thing he’s afraid of is that slight chance of ending up hating him. He can’t imagine living a life in which he doesn’t feel anything else but an overwhelming love for him.

“Let’s do this.”

He sounds a lot more confident than he feels, but Shouyou doesn’t need to know that. Shouyou doesn’t need to know, either, how much his fingers tremble when he reaches out with his right hand, pressing his palm as softly as he can manage against the scalding hot cheek underneath. His thumb traces the high of his cheekbone, almost as he can erase the freckles beneath, and a shiver snaps down his spine when Shouyou leans into his caress as if chasing the warmth coming from his skin.

Atsumu leans in, shortening the distance between them. It feels like crossing an unstable, wobbly bridge that seems to shake under his weight and he doesn’t notice his breath is hitching in his nose when he realizes that are just a few centimetres still in between his lips and Shouyou’s.

“Atsumu-san,” he whispers. His voice comes out low and raspy, almost velvety, and Atsumu shivers when the little puffs of air coming out of Shouyou’s brush against his sensitive lips. “Just do it.”

He swallows. His throat tightens like there’s a lump that won’t allow him to breathe properly for the rest of his life and he _might_ be starting to think that it’s better to chicken out when Shouyou reaches out and his cool fingers press against his nape, pulling him in until his lips are pressed against his.

There’s a groan replacing the lump in his throat, crawling its way up to rest over his tongue, almost struggling to go past his lips and muffle against Shouyou’s. It coats his taste buds with the sweet yet frustrating flavour of contained release, spreading a tingling sensation through his body that seems to explode like tiny fireworks in every single one of his nerve ends. The warmth of the mouth pressed against his sends shivers down his back, melts away the tension in his shoulders and turns him into a puddle of oversensitive skin and exposed nerves.

The contact seems to become a lifeline; it’s the only thing he can feel, taste, _smell_ , and it’s like all of Shouyou is overwhelming him until the rest of the world crumbles away into some sort of white noise that buzzes in the back of his head, right beneath the four fingers pressed against the nape of his neck.

And just as surprisingly as it began, the contact breaks and there’s a whole new ocean in between his lips and Shouyou’s. The salt in this one tastes different, however; it feels _saltier_ , deeper, burning his tongue, his throat, and his stomach with a more furious fire. This is the after-taste of having tried that _one_ thing he’d been longing for since he was seventeen slapping him in the face with the knowledge that this isn’t real, that he might never have it again if it isn’t _necessary_.

Shouyou retracts his hand, letting it fall limp on his lap. Atsumu grits his teeth and tries to not look disappointed. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but the moment when his lips were pressed against his felt like an eternity. Endless and sweet and all sorts of painful.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Shouyou says, smiling. There’s a glint to his eyes that Atsumu can’t quite recognize, something he’s never seen before. It looks too much like his own yearning staring back at him from the mirror to be real and he blinks as if trying to erase the mirage from his pupils. When his eyelids part again, the glint is gone and what’s left behind is the same friendly warmth Shouyou always has when he looks at Atsumu. “Was it?”

“Not at all,” he says, trying —and failing— to smile. How can a man live after getting a taste of the only thing that he’d been dreaming of every night for seven years? “I guess we’re ready for the, huh, _day_ we have to do this in front of my family, eh?”

“Yeah,” Shouyou giggles.

* * *

“Are you two… holding hands?”

“Yes, Inu-san.”

“Huh. Weird. For a moment there I thought I was hallucinating you two _finally_ decided to get together.”

Inunaki’s voice is loud in the locker room and Atsumu grimaces slightly at the volume. This was their objective, but he wasn’t expecting Inunaki to be the one to notice the hand holding thing. It feels like he wants to attract the entire team’s attention to the fact that he and Shouyou seem to be dating.

Shouyou brushes it off with a very natural burst of laughter that bounces off of the walls of the room. Atsumu is amazed at his ability to pretend he’s okay with holding his hand, with kissing him, with looking like a very much in love boyfriend. He looks so natural while doing it that Atsumu doesn’t know if his imagination is playing him or if he’s too desperate for any sort of love coming from Shouyou that he’s willing to take the crumbs of affection he’ll get to receive through this deal.

“Wait!” comes the thunderous voice of Bokuto. The slight grimace on Atsumu’s face turns into a full one when that only word rings in his ears with an unpleasant whistling in the middle of his head. “Tsum-Tsum and Hinata are dating?! Since when?!”

Atsumu clears his throat.

“Two months,” he says, shrugging like it’s nothing, like the lie means nothing to him, like the warmth of Shouyou’s fingers intertwined with his means less than _nothing_. He wants to jump off a cliff. “We didn’t want to disrupt the work-place, so we decided to keep it a secret.”

Oh, he’s good at lying, too. It comes almost natural to him.

“Hinata!” Bokuto whines, looking like a puppy under the rain. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Atsumu-san already told you, Bokuto-senpai,” he laughs, dedicating Bokuto a curlicue of his free hand. It seems like he wants to physically push his whining away in the same way one would do with an annoying fly. “We didn’t want to cause any trouble.”

“You should’ve told me,” he cries out, dramatically. “What will Akaashi say?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“Can I be the one to tell him?”

“No, Bokuto-senpai,” there’s the laughter again, so natural and sunny Atsumu is almost too tempted to believe this isn’t just a fake-dating deal, to jump face-first into the façade to turn it into something that’s real, tangible, _his_. “I want to be the one to tell Akaashi-san about Atsumu-san.”

It’s funny how Bokuto goes from looking like a puppy under the rain to a puppy under the rain that someone _just_ kicked. He probably wasn’t expecting a negative coming from Shouyou of all people, but Atsumu needs to recognize that he’s taking it very well. He expected some more crying, maybe some begging, and _maybe_ one of his depressive episodes, but what’s in front of him is just a man that seems to be a bit sad about not being able to deliver such big news.

“Now, Bokkun,” Atsumu calls from his spot on the bench. The same bench where Shouyou decided to help him out with his ‘problem’ by causing him more problems he’ll very willingly welcome into his life just for these few moments where he can sink himself into this lie. “Don’t look so sad.”

Bokuto whispers something under his breath that Atsumu doesn’t manage to listen and he’s about to ask him to repeat it when Omi peers from behind the door of the showers. Atsumu smiles at him, containing the need of making fun of the way his hair sticks to his forehead, making him look like some sort of cartoon pastor dog. Black eyes stare right into his and his eyebrows furrow slightly while his stare slides slowly to Atsumu’s hand, linked with Shouyou’s.

He puffs out an annoyed sigh and gets out of the showers, ignoring them in his way to his locker.

Omi is the only one, besides them, that knows about the fake dating thing. He was the one to suggest it after all, and Atsumu wonders if his attitude will make the rest of the team suspect of the _nature_ of Shouyou and Atsumu’s relationship. He doubts Omi cares about it enough to say something that will put them on the spot, but he never knows.

“Hey, Shouyou-kun,” he says, leaning into Shouyou’s personal space to whisper at his ear. “Do you think we should talk to Omi-kun?”

Shouyou turns his head slightly, looking at him through the corner of his eyes. He’s smiling at Inunaki and Bokuto, who are now conspiring on the best way to tell the rest of the team about how he and Shouyou finally started dating. The smile doesn’t disappear while he seems to consider his question and his gaze goes back to the two of them as if Atsumu hadn’t talked at all.

“No, I don’t think it’s necessary,” he answers a few moments later. His fingers tense a little in between Atsumu’s and his stomach does a somersault. “He knows about us and I doubt he cares enough to say something that would make us look suspicious.”

“Yeah… I think so.”

Shouyou hums softly, tilting his head to finally put all of his attention on Atsumu. It feels like some kind of comfortable weight pressing him against a warm surface and he tries his best to not squirm under those amber eyes fixed on him. He fails.

“We should get going,” Shouyou suggests, smiling sweetly. Atsumu wants to kiss him again, this time for real because that smile does _things_ to him and he’s a weak, _weak_ man. “We’re supposed to go on a _date_ , right?”

“Ah, yeah,” he manages to push out. A _date_. Just two boys, chilling in a restaurant, one table apart because they’re _definitely_ not fake dating and pretending to spend time together to take pictures for his social media to fool his family. “Eight-thirty, right?”

“Yup.”

Shouyou pops the p. Atsumu thinks it’s adorable.

He’s a fool in love, fooling himself into a situation that will surely break his heart, foolishly believing that he can survive to the big, fat footprint Shouyou will leave in his life once the deal comes to an end.

“Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PDA? Yes please. 
> 
> I hope you liked today's episode! See you next week! 
> 
> Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_) for more screaming! 


	4. Unknown history

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy oh boy I'm so sorry for the late update. I went out with a friend today because I was gonna go insane if I stayed at home another day aaanndddd I'm super tired. So I rested a bit and watched today's episode. 
> 
> Haha I cried so much. BUT ANYWAY thank you so much for your comments <3 I hope you like today's episode! 

Atsumu isn’t used to a lot of things, he’s realized that lately. He isn’t used to the way his stomach flops every time he gets to touch Shouyou now that they’re fake dating, and he isn’t used to the nervousness that creeps its way up his neck whenever he’s too close for comfort. He isn’t used to seeing him in his street clothes either, especially in jeans, because the only clothes he remembers Shouyou wearing are sports uniforms and plain sporty clothes.

He looks _good_. Too good for Atsumu to be a functioning human being and the fact that he’s been able to sit there and eat like his entire resolve of taking this easy isn’t crumbling away like a sand-castle should earn him some sort of prize. Some kind of Guinness Record for the world’s most strong willpower or something. Because he’s five seconds away of telling Shouyou the truth and therefore, destroying whatever friendship they have.

“Atsumu-san,” Shouyou calls. His train of thought crashes against a concrete wall that comes out of the blue and the mental image almost causes him physical pain. He blinks towards Shouyou, who’s sitting across a very small table, sipping absentmindedly at his orange juice like he isn’t interested in the world around him. Amber eyes fix on Atsumu then, staring deep into some part of his soul he isn’t sure he wants Shouyou to see. “Can I ask you a question?”

He sounds serious. Sirens blare in Atsumu’s head and the first he does is to chuckle nervously.

“I don’t know, can you?”

Shouyou pouts. His answer is stupid and he’s totally starting to sound like his dad, but Shouyou just laughs under his breath at his awful joke. He’s the only one that laughs at his dad jokes. His chest clenches at the thought; Shouyou is basically the only person out of his family that accepts him just like he is.

“ _Atsumu-san_ ,” he whines, pouting again.

“Okay, okay,” Atsumu breathes out, placing his hand over his heart in a dramatic gesture that earns him a string of giggles falling out of Shouyou’s mouth. He loves the sound of his laughter. “Go ahead.”

“It’s… a personal question,” Shouyou explains, clearing his throat.

“Shouyou-kun, we’re kinda fake-dating. I don’t think it can get more personal than that.”

It can. He just knows that it won’t happen.

“Well…” he hums. Atsumu notices the tension in his shoulders and his eyes follow the motion of his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his neck. He knows he should feel nervous about the question Shouyou is about to ask, but he can only focus on how much he wants the person in front of him to relax and go back to the easy-going atmosphere they were surrounded by a few minutes ago. He hates the idea of Shouyou feeling uncomfortable more than he can feel anxious for being asked something that he might not want to answer. “It’s— it’s about your sexual orientation, actually.”

“Oh.”

“I know Osamu-san is marrying Akaashi-san so your parents can’t be homophobic, and I’m really glad about that,” he continues, tapping the fingers of his right hand against the white plastic of the table. “But what about you? I’m just—! I’m just curious.”

Atsumu presses his back against the backrest of his chair, stretching his arms until his middle fingers are almost touching Shouyou’s hands. The question doesn’t bother him, but he doesn’t feel comfortable answering it either. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Shouyou; it’s that he isn’t sure about his sexual orientation. He’s liked boys and girls his whole life, but he’d never fallen this hard for someone. It feels like his feelings for the guy sitting in front of him put everything in perspective and a really weird one. Before Shouyou, he never thought he’d want to wake up to someone else’s face, even if that implies seeing Shouyou bleary-eyed, with a thread of saliva sliding down his open mouth.

“Why the interest?” Atsumu asks, trying to not let Shouyou know he’s avoiding the question. Should he tell him that he doesn’t know? Would Shouyou understand if he told him he doesn’t want to answer?

“Well— you chose me to be your, huh, _fake boyfriend_. You could’ve asked any girl, you know? There’re a lot out there that would be delighted to date you, even if it’s a scam.”

Atsumu laughs at the word. _Scam_. Yeah, he can totally say this is a scam. The only thing he’s getting out of it is some mental peace, but it’s still a scam at the end of the day.

“I don’t know any girl I trust enough to do this, though,” he explains. Shouyou doesn’t need to know that this is him digging his own grave, pushing himself to enjoy this fake present as some sort of loan he’ll have to pay through pain when this arrangement comes to an end. Shouyou doesn’t need to know about his feelings either. “You’re one of my best friends. I trust you.”

The word doesn’t sit right in his chest. It coats his tongue with the bitter taste of a blatant lie, stinging in his taste buds like he just took a sip of a bottle of vinegar. He refrains from grimacing because he’d put himself in evidence, but the way his stomach coils in disgust makes him feel weak and tired nonetheless.

“That’s very sweet,” Shouyou sighs, smiling. Atsumu fixes his stare on the dimples that sink at each side of his mouth and wonders why he didn’t notice them before. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“You’re welcome.”

He nods and Atsumu retracts his hands to wrap them around his cup of coffee. The warmth coming from the porcelain tingles in his palms and the sensitive creases of his fingers, waving along with the calm beating of his heart. He feels peaceful albeit having a perfect view of the busy city out of the café, strangers going up and down the sidewalk without looking at each other. It’s like a whirlpool of faces and colours, swirling in between the glow of the streetlamps, mixing with the distant blaring of an ambulance siren and the revving of the engines coming to a stop under the streetlights.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Atsumu bites the inside of his cheek.

“I don’t feel comfortable talking about it,” he breathes out.

Shouyou blinks. Once, twice, three times. His eyelashes flutter like butterflies.

“Oh,” he sighs. “Okay.”

His sigh isn’t one of defeat or disappointment. Atsumu can recognize those— he’s seen and heard them enough times to have them engraved in the deepest parts of his brain. Shouyou doesn’t get easily frustrated anymore, not at least as easily as the person he met when he was seventeen. He still does, however, when he’s having a rough day at practice. Everyone has a bad day sometimes and he’s no exception to the rule, and albeit being able to count those times with the fingers of his hands, he’s still very capable of recognizing them.

No. The sigh that leaves his mouth is one of understanding, one that says he won’t push the topic if Atsumu doesn’t feel comfortable talking about that. His reaction confirms his hunch, makes him feel like Shouyou is more than worthy of the feelings he harbours for him.

Atsumu smiles from ear to ear.

“Wanna go to my place to watch a movie?”

“Oh, hell yeah!”

* * *

“ _You’re **what**?_ **”**

Shouyou presses the palm of his hand against his mouth to muffle his giggling. He’s currently leaning against the stove, his hip pressed right where the knobs are, and Atsumu would worry about them digging into the slim layer of muscle there and how much that must hurt, but the current reaction of Osamu over the phone is hoarding all of his attention. His twin seems to have fallen off of a metaphorical —probably a literal, truth be told— chair and the gasp that crackles through the line almost makes him choke on a burst of laughter.

“Dating someone,” he repeats, rolling his eyes so hard he feels they can almost pop out of their sockets. “Are you deaf?”

“ _No, I’m just dumbfounded_ ,” Osamu grunts. Atsumu can almost see him massaging his temple to get rid of a headache he’s sure he’s the author of. “ _Since when? Why didn’t you tell me before?_ ”

“Okay, first off,” Atsumu begins, cringing slightly. His brother sounds too incredulous for his liking as if he’s finding it hard to believe that someone decided to date him. Granted he’s not _really_ dating anyone and this whole thing is just a play pretend, but Osamu has no right whatsoever to sound this _dumbfounded_. His words, not Atsumu’s, “why is it so hard to believe that someone would want to date me?”

“ _’Tsumu. You can’t cook for shit, you whine when someone does something cool, you have a volley ball for brain, and your jokes are worse than dad’s. Excuse the life out of me if I find it hard to believe that you’re dating someone_ ,” his twin says. Atsumu scrunches his nose as if someone put something that smells like death itself in front of his face. “ _Who’s the poor soul that got condemned to put up with you?_ ”

“It’s me, Osamu-san,” Shouyou intercedes the moment Atsumu opens up his mouth to tell his brother to fuck off. The call is on speaker and both twins suck in an abrupt intake of air at his words. Osamu because he probably can recognize Shouyou’s voice and Atsumu because he didn’t expect him to admit it so openly, so easily. “I’m Atsumu-san’s boyfriend.”

“ _Shouyou-kun?_ ” Osamu asks weakly.

“Yup!”

“ _How much is he paying you?_ ”

Atsumu expects another round of giggles that would surely make his heart melt. The sound of Shouyou’s laughter does _things_ to both his heart and his stomach and he’s still not used to the giddy sensation that spreads, hot and bubbly, across the interior of his ribcage whenever there’s something that makes him happy enough to laugh. However, he wasn’t expecting the sudden frown wrinkling the tanned skin of his forehead nor the pale line his mouth turns into when he presses his lips until their colour change from a pretty pink to a yellowish-white hue.

“He isn’t paying me, Osamu-san,” Shouyou affirms. His voice sounds stern and slightly angry, and Atsumu’s fingers tense around the phone he’s holding in between the two so Shouyou can hear his twin speaking. Hazel irises fix on the other’s face and upon realizing the way he’s looking at the screen, he feels his throat constrict. Those are his snake eyes, the eyes he uses to look at whoever dares to underestimate him. “I’m dating your brother on my own free will.”

If Atsumu suffered from a sudden case of amnesia and he forgot everything he knows, he’d think whoever Shouyou is talking about is really dear to him. The ferocity in his words makes shivers snap down his spine, reaching out like fingers through his back, sliding down his ribs to constrict around his heart like a snake. It sounds so real Atsumu himself is having problems differentiating the blurred line —a line _he_ blurred from the beginning— between the fake dating and the real feelings Shouyou’s voice seems to give away.

“ _I didn’t mean—_ ” Osamu begins. He sighs, the sound cracking with static through the phone line, and Atsumu raises his eyebrows with curiosity. “ _It was a joke, Shouyou-kun. I apologize_.”

Shouyou smiles then, every trace of ferocity being wiped off of his face like it was never there in the first place. The change in his expression leaves Atsumu breathless.

“It’s okay!” he chirps, going back to his cheery self in the blink of an eye. “Atsumu-san is a great boyfriend. Don’t let his… _dummy_ self trick you.”

“Shouyou-kun!” Atsumu whines.

“ _Please don’t talk to me about ‘Tsumu as a boyfriend_ ,” Osamu complains. The disgust in his voice is absolutely faux and Atsumu can almost picture the exaggerated expression of revulsion in his face. The idea makes him smile fondly. “ _This is why you called, ‘Tsumu? To tell me you’re finally dating?_ ”

“It was one of the reasons,” he singsongs. “The other one was to invite you to my next match. Schweiden Adlers versus yours truly, the Black Jackals.”

“ _You’re suddenly a good brother, aren’t you?_ ”

“Shut up, you piece of bootleg,” he huffs. “I wanted to help you out with your business since you can sell your onigiri in Sendai, but seeing that you just decided to go for slander instead of gratitude…”

“ _Okay, okay, drama queen! Thank you so much for inviting me to your match_ ,” Osamu thanks sarcastically. Atsumu almost throws his phone out of the window of the kitchen. “ _Want me to tell mum and dad about… the whole thing?_ ”

“That’d be great.”

“ _You’re such an asshole_ ,” Atsumu smiles. Osamu is right: he _is_ an asshole. “ _By the way, congratulations on finally getting Shouyou-kun to date you. I’ve been done with your p_ _—”_

Atsumu hangs up the phone before his twin gets to the end of his sentence. He’d forgotten the _small_ detail of his brother being aware of his true feelings for Shouyou. Atsumu had to admit he wasn’t subtle about them when he was a teenager— when they were going back home after that fateful match, the last thing he found himself able to do was to shut up about Karasuno’s tiny number ten. His speed, his jump height, the blinding light that seemed to follow him all over the court. The mere thought of his own words makes his cringe with bad conceited self-shame: he’d been head over heels then, and he’s head over heels now. The difference is that he now knows how to shut his trap.

Shouyou blinks towards the phone a few times before fixing his amber eyes on Atsumu’s blushed face. There’s a glint to his eyes that Atsumu cannot recognize, something that seems to give away something _else_ he’s unable to recall. His whole expression is a mystery refusing to unfold in front of him and he feels frustrated. He’d never had problems reading Shouyou before.

“Well,” Shouyou begins, smiling. He doesn’t comment on Osamu’s last words or lack thereof, and he doesn’t seem bothered by whatever he managed to understand from them. “What about that movie? I was promised a movie, Atsumu-san. I refuse to leave this apartment without my movie.”

“The movie will begin as soon as the pizza arrives,” Atsumu answers, sliding his phone back into his jeans pocket. He makes it sound like an announcement, and the faux grandiloquence of his voice makes Shouyou giggle softly. It’s a fond sound, almost tender, and he has to contain the burning need of ranting about his feelings right there and then. “Shall we go to the living room, _m’sieur_?”

“Atsumu-san, I didn’t know you could speak French!” Shouyou marvels, big doe eyes looking at him so impressed Atsumu is suddenly proud of that single word he knows. He smiles at him, reaching out with his right hand to ruffle the orange locks, recording in his nerve ends the soft feeling against the palm of his hand and the sensitive sides of his fingers. “That’s so cool!”

“Says the guy who speaks Japanese, English, _and_ Portuguese,” he chuckles. “Besides, I don’t speak French. I only know that word.”

“You’re still cool.”

_Is he trying to kill me?_

“T-Thank you,” Atsumu stammers, clearing his throat. He’s _so weak_ to Shouyou’s compliments he feels like a joke. He’s nothing but a clown and Shouyou has him wrapped around his finger, and it only takes one pull from his hand to disarm him. He feels like a puppet, handled solely by Hinata Shouyou. It’s ridiculous. “Let’s sit down and chose the movie, what do you think?”

“Let’s do it!”

They end up ignoring the movie olympically. The pizza arrives fifteen minutes after they’ve sat down on the couch, backs pressed against the armrest and feet almost touching over the cushion at the centre, and as Atsumu complains about having to get up to pay for the food, Shouyou simply laughs.

The atmosphere is comfortable. Once he’s back on his spot and has given Shouyou a plate for him to place his pizza on, they fall into a quiet conversation about everything and nothing. There aren’t any deep questions asked, there aren’t any sad experiences thrown into their talk. It’s just them, joking and laughing about stuff they’ve seen and lived, giving slight hints of a life the other has zero knowledge of.

Atsumu munches on his slice of pizza while Shouyou rants about that time he lost his wallet in Rio de Janeiro. He knew he worked as a delivery boy, but he wasn’t aware of him having lived that kind of experience there. His story should sound sad, should _feel_ sad, and Atsumu knows this is one of those things that kind of come to you when you’re falling asleep at night, but Shouyou doesn’t make it sound like that. He seems unbothered by it, albeit telling him that at the time he felt lost and depressed due to what he felt was a downfall in his life.

“Then Oikawa-san showed up,” he keeps on going, smiling broadly. It’s almost as blinding as the sun, and Atsumu has long ago resigned about the fact that the longer he spends at Shouyou’s side, the sooner he’ll go blind. He can’t say he minds. “It was… nice, you know? Having someone known there to share that.”

“Oikawa?” Atsumu repeats, blinking in confusion. “Oikawa Tooru?”

“You know him?” Shouyou asks, wide-eyed and excited. He’s like a puppy sometimes. “Oikawa-san was Kageyama’s teammate at Kitagawa Daiichi. He’s _amazing_ , his serves are something else, and he’s got this… this… _talent_ to make the entire team dance to his tune. He’s such a _great_ setter!”

Atsumu feels a pang of jealousy bite at the pit of his stomach. It feels like Shouyou just kicked him in the middle of his chest, as if he slid an ice cube over his spine. All at the same time. Atsumu knows he isn’t entitled to jealousy when it comes to Shouyou— he isn’t entitled to _him_ in any sense and yet here he is, fingers tensing under the plate, gritted teeth around a mouthful of scalding hot pizza burning over his tongue. Here he is, feeling a wave of uncalled for hatred towards Oikawa Tooru, this man that got the privilege of seeing Shouyou at his lowest point, this man that has the privilege of having Hinata Shouyou speaking so highly of him.

“Atsumu-san?” Shouyou asks. He leans in a bit, waving his hand in front of Atsumu’s face to get his attention, a look of worry glimmering softly in his amber irises. Whatever is showing on his face seems to make the sirens in his head go off and Atsumu recoils without meaning to. He clears his throat and smiles, trying with all his might to not look as if a wrecking ball just nailed him square in the stomach. “Are you okay?”

“Absolutely!” he lies after swallowing. His voice comes out too high pitched for his liking and he cringes at the sound. It feels like someone just scraped their nails against a blackboard. “Perfectly fine. Amazingly okay.”

“Atsumu-san, you’re not making any sense.”

“Bold of you to assume I _ever_ make sense, Shouyou-kun.”

Shouyou chuckles and Atsumu’s shoulders relax. He takes a new bite of his pizza, munching on the crust while trying to get rid of the unpleasant feeling simmering at low heat in his stomach. It feels like an expanding bubble, pressing against the inside of his body, choking him with all the things he wants to say but knows he can’t. He’s not even three days into this deal and he’s already thinking of tapping out. He’s just not that strong.

“Sounds like you’ve got a crush on Oikawa,” he jokes. There’s some sort of self-hatred sliding underneath his words and he prays to all the gods he knows that Shouyou isn’t able to notice it. Atsumu does _not_ want to hear the answer to that, doesn’t want Shouyou to tell him to his face that yes, he has romantic feelings towards Oikawa Tooru. Why did he even ask that?

“Ah,” Shouyou breathes out. He chuckles nervously for a few seconds and Atsumu’s heart drops to his knees. “We, uhm. We actually had a thing in Brazil…? It wasn’t anything serious, but…”

 _But_. That’s all that’s needed to turn the pizza from a rich, tasty mouthful of heaven into ashes coating his tongue. He knows he’s being dramatic and god knows, too, that he’d like for his brain to stop hurting itself so much, but he can’t help it. Atsumu is well aware of the setter Oikawa Tooru is, knows how good he is on the court. Knows how many fans he has all over the world now that he plays for that Argentinian team. And he can’t help but feel somewhat inferior despite his successful career.

“I realized that you don’t need romantic attachments, you know?” Shouyou continues, shoving the rest of the slice into his mouth. For a moment there he looks like a hamster or a squirrel and Atsumu wants to feel the tension in his heart that tells him that _god_ , he loves this man so much, but all he can feel is a dulled feel of ridiculous abandonment. “It was easy with Oikawa-san. We both knew things wouldn’t work out between us, so we enjoyed the moment.”

“Is that why you used to sleep around so much?”

Regret crawls its way up his throat the moment the words are out of his mouth. Atsumu didn’t mean to meddle into Shouyou’s life— let alone his _sex_ life. He doesn’t care. It’s none of his business and _Jesus Christ_ why is he this much of a stupid prick?

A thread of giggles falls from Shouyou’s mouth, dripping onto his lap like crystal clear water. The sound seems to escalate through the air, spiralling over their heads, and Atsumu thinks he’s almost capable of seeing the colour of Shouyou’s laughter swirling around him like smoke, like silk tenderly caressed by the wind.

“I think so?” he admits, shrugging. “Falling in love was never something I cared for that much… but I still craved sex.”

“So you aren’t in love with Oikawa,” Atsumu says. It isn’t a question per se, but he still expects Shouyou to confirm it. Just for the sake of his poor heart.

“No, I’m not in love with him,” he confirms. Something seems to snap inside of Atsumu’s chest and it feels like the string of a violin that’s been under too much tension for too long, and he lets go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“What made you stop? Sleeping around, I mean,” Atsumu asks. The question feels as harmful as the prior one, but it doesn’t feel like he’s walking on thin ice anymore. Shouyou’s positive response to a completely intrusive inquiry makes him feel safe; safe enough to push a little further until he finds the limit and Shouyou himself tells him to stop.

There’s something fleeting, brief moving behind Shouyou’s amber eyes. It seems to hold all the answers to every question Atsumu can come up with, almost drawing him in, too tempting to resist the urge to decipher it, like it’s a code he needs to crack to survive, to _breathe_. It’s gone before he can even grasp it, engrave it into his brain to analyse it later, and he feels its loss like the death of an opportunity he’s sure he’ll never have again.

“It stopped being interesting.”

The answer feels like a death sentence for the topic. It also feels like a slap straight to his face, a stop sign coming out of the blue and he’s just crashed against it. Something constricts in his chest, coiling around his heart like cold fingers wrapping the muscle and then _squishing_.

“What about you, Atsumu-san?” Shouyou ask, tilting his head to the left.

“What about me?”

“You could have anyone you wanted,” he explains. Shouyou doesn’t seem to be complimenting him just for the sake of it; he sounds so matter-of-factly that Atsumu can’t help but blink owlishly. He _really_ believes that Atsumu could have anyone he could ever want and albeit he doesn’t agree because he definitely can get the only person he wants, there’s some sort of appreciation in his words that makes his chest clench with a whole different feeling. “But I’ve never seen you date anyone… not even a one night stand.”

“I’m not interested in… casual sex,” he answers, blushing slightly. He’s not interested in casual sex because he’s been too busy being in love with the man sitting in front of him to even _have_ sex. “I’m a romantic, Shouyou-kun.”

“Oh, so you’re waiting for the _right one_ ,” Shouyou giggles. “Have you found them?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Atsumu bites the interior of his cheek. He has the perfect chance to confess his feelings right here, right now, dancing _naked_ in front of him. It’s almost sitting on his lap and he can feel its lips moving against his ear, telling him to let go of all the things he’s wanted to say for ages, to get that heavy weight off of his shoulders.

He decides it isn’t worth it.

“They’re not interested in me.”

Shouyou blinks.

“Are they blind?”

_I don’t know, are you?_

“Probably. I’ve been painfully obvious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this house we respect others' boundaries. And Shouyou is no different. 
> 
> Also, I'm sorry for the Osamu thing skdhbfkds He just likes to tease his brother but Shou wasn't having none of that u____u A baby. 
> 
> I hope you liked today's episode! See you next week!
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_)! 


	5. Physical touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday everyone! Did you watch the episode yet? I honestly loved it ksdjhkjdf I'm such a simp for Yaku. 
> 
> Thank you all _so much_ for all the comments. I swear I couldn't be happier about them. I didn't expect this reaction ;____;
> 
> Today's episode is a bit longer than the others, so I hope you enjoy it! 

Shouyou’s presence is like that of a crow when Atsumu feels his amber eyes fixed on him. As he glances momentarily at him before tossing a quick, he feels like a moth drawn to the fire; Shouyou jumps and before he can even think about what he’s doing, his hands are on the move, ten fingers pressing against the rubber that covers the ball. The motion is smooth and fast and in front of his eyes, Shouyou’s hand intercepts the curve right in its higher point, smashing it against the other side of the court.

The sound of the ball hitting the linoleum seems to pierce the silence in Atsumu’s head. He blinks into the reality that opens up in front of him and takes in a deep breath, his lungs stretching until they _burn_ and then Shouyou’s arms are around his neck, and Atsumu’s hands grip his waist like he’s trying to fuse their skins together.

“We won!” he chirps against his neck. His breath tickles against the dampen, sensitive skin over his jugular and Atsumu shivers. “Acchan, we won!”

_Acchan?_

“Shouyou-kun?” he asks. His voice shakes and his hands tremble against Shouyou’s waist. He can’t deny he _likes it_ when he says that nickname like that, so soft and filled with tenderness and love. It’s too much for his heart to handle it. “What’d you just call me?”

“Acchan,” he answers, leaning back to look at him with a puzzled expression settling itself over every line of his face. His burrow is furrowed and there seems to be an unanswered question moving behind those amber irises. A question Atsumu doesn’t want to hear for some crazy, dream-like reason. “I’ve always called you Acchan.”

“Oh,” he sighs. “It’s a dream.”

“Of course, silly,” Shouyou giggles. Atsumu can see the colour of his laughter swirling in the air above their heads, stretching its fingers until it disappears on its way to the roof of the gymnasium. “Would you have followed me to Brazil in real life?”

Atsumu wakes up drenched in a cold, sticky sweat that grosses him out. His first instinct is to kick the covers entangled around his ankles and the moment he does it, he regrets it immediately. The cold air of his room nips at every patch of exposed skin, _damp_ skin, and he shivers while his teeth rattle because of the temperature that surrounds him.

He glances at his phone, placed screen down on the nightstand. Judging by the light that filters through the curtains of his room, the sun is just starting to show up over the horizon. He woke up before dawn on Christmas Eve.

“Fuck me,” he curses, rubbing his hands against his face. How the hell did he manage to wake up before the sunrise on _Christmas Eve_? Why does god hate him so much? What did he ever do wrong to deserve this treatment? “Gently. With a chainsaw.”

There’s no use in trying to go back to sleep, but he decides to behave like a child and plops back against the comfortable warmth of his mattress and pillows while pulling the covers up until they reach his ears. He is _not_ getting out of his bed until his alarm rings and he is definitely _not_ giving in to the needy growl his stomach makes rumble across his entire body, burning in the back of his throat with the reminder that he’s hungry as hell and that he could use a bowl of fruit.

He hates waking up before dawn. The loneliness of his apartment seems to choke him whenever it’s dark and he has the bad luck of being awake; it reminds him that he’s all on his own here in Tokyo, trying with all his might to focus on his volleyball career because if he stops, even if it’s just for a fraction of a second, all the things he left behind come crawling up his skin like spiders. It also makes him think about all the things he wants and would surely help ease the loneliness a little bit, but that just makes it worse.

He wants one thing and that _thing_ doesn’t want him back. Especially since it’s not a thing but a person, and he’s being silly again and he should really hit the shower and maybe masturbate to ease the tension snapping down his back.

Atsumu kicks away the covers once more, lying flat on his back with his arms stretched at each side of his body, looking at the ceiling like it’s gonna give him the answers to some existential question he’s not quite formulated yet. His heart beats slowly inside his chest and he can hear the echo in his right hear like a constant hammer hitting the anvil, shaping something into life. Something he’s not sure he wants to get to see.

His alarm goes off and Atsumu slides the icon on the screen of his phone to turn it off. He swings his legs over the edge of the mattress and shivers when his naked feet press against the cold floor underneath. All the hairs in his body stand on end like needles against his skin and he curses at his decision of not putting a carpet beneath his bed. And the perspective of doing it now makes him feel tired of just thinking about it.

With a sigh, Atsumu stands up and starts to get rid of his clothes on his way to the bathroom. He needs a bath of soapy, foamy warm water and maybe a new brain. He’s been doing too much thinking lately, especially since his deal with Shouyou started and the relationship between the two started to get blurry on the edges. The questions of what is and what isn’t real keep going around in his mind, bouncing against the inside of his skull like it’s a bouncy-castle and he hates the idea of overthinking this too much. The thing is he _can’t help it_ because every time Shouyou cradles his face in between his hands like he’s the most precious thing in the world, something inside of him tells him there is no way in hell that he’s faking it all.

“Shut up,” he whines, pushing the bathroom door open with his shoulder. When he flips the switch and the light above his head bathes the room with its mellow yellow hue, he blinks into the new illumination. His eyes hurt a little while they adjust and as he paddles over the bathtub, he shivers once more. “Why don’t you just shut up for a while?”

His brain doesn’t answer, of course. He _is_ his brain. He can’t turn it into the enemy just to get away from a problem he got into all by himself.

The steam spirals above his head, filling the room with the damp smell of hot water and the promise of relaxed muscles at this ungodly hour. He waits for the bathtub the be half-full to add some bubbles, sighing at the sight of the foam starting to form around his hand when he wiggles his fingers in and out of the water.

The bath fulfils its purpose: when he comes out half an hour later, wrinkled as a raisin and smelling of mint, he’s so relaxed that his bones feel like rubber. If his stomach wasn’t growling at him, demanding food, he’d dry his hair and go back to bed just for the sake of enjoying this free week. Atsumu truly thinks he deserves a lazy morning, especially after the Black Jackals beat the Schweiden Adlers last month. Granted, they got a free day after winning the match, but ever since then they’ve been going at it in the same way they were before. This is a _week_. A week where he’ll get to rest a little from his confusing feelings and his more confusing relationship with Shouyou.

Or so he thought.

He sits down on the bed to rub at his hair with the towel hanging around his neck when he notices the soft glow of his phone’s screen against the varnished wood of his nightstand. There’s only one person that sends him a text this early in the morning, and he realizes he must have lost his second alarm when he reaches out for the device and unlocks it.

There’s a good morning text from the one and only Hinata Shouyou on top of the notifications he got while he was sleeping. There’s an absolutely unnecessary kaomoji at the end of his «good morning, Atsumu-san!» that makes his heart clench and his stomach fill with a giddy, fuzzy feeling he’s not sure he can shake off.

It’s seven-fifteen in the morning and by the string of messages he sends right after his good morning text, he’s getting ready to go out on his daily run. A wide smile stretches on Atsumu’s lips, pulling at the corners of his mouth and if he’s to be honest to himself, he doesn’t do anything to stop it.

He’s done doing stuff to stop the things he feels for Shouyou. He’s done with the overthinking. He just wants to have something nice without having to work his ass off for it, enjoy this fake dating thing while it lasts.

One specific text catches his eye, his stare fixing on the upper part of the screen where his notifications are all crumbled together in numbers he doesn’t even dare to look at. It’s one simple line, crowned by an eyes emoji after a question mark. It sends his heart racing against the interior of his ribcage as if it wants to rip muscle apart and break bones to escape to the Bermuda Triangle.

« _What’re you doing tonight?_ ».

What is he doing _tonight_? On Christmas Eve? His plans went along the lines of going to bed late after watching _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ because that’s the only movie that is worth for two holidays and stuffing his face with so many unhealthy things his doctor would want to shoot themselves in the foot. _That_ was his idea for tonight.

He decides to lie just in case he gets to spend the evening with Shouyou doing exactly the same thing he was planning on doing.

When he puts his phone down, five minutes after going back and forth with a few flirtatious texts that end up with him getting to spend the night with Shouyou, the idea of going back to bed seems ridiculous. It feels like he just put his hand over a wire with direct current, like he downed six cups of coffee in one gulp, like he drank three consecutive Red-Bulls, _all at the same time_ and _holy shit_ he’s got a date? With Shouyou? On Christmas Eve?

He must be the luckiest guy in the world.

* * *

Atsumu is the unluckiest guy to ever walk the earth and he’s not really sure if his current situation has anything to do with him just being… like _that_ or with the fact that it’s winter and snow happens in winter. All the time. He should have known something like this could happen and therefore, be ready for the hypothetical events that would be put into motion with a slight change of the weather.

“I’m so sorry, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou says, scratching at the back of his head. He looks a tiny bit blushed and there’s a nervous tick pulling at the angle if his right eyebrow. “I should’ve brought clothes. I didn’t expect this to happen.”

Truth be told, Atsumu wasn’t expecting this either. His night wasn’t supposed to go like this. He wasn’t supposed to have to lend Shouyou some clothes for him to sleep at his apartment because the snow made it impossible for taxis to roam the city. He wasn’t supposed to be having a crisis over seeing Shouyou wearing an oversized hoodie with the sleeves falling to the tip of his fingers and a pair of oversized sweatpants. Everything is oversized on him because the clothes are _Atsumu’s_ and he can’t stop thinking about how cute he looks while wearing his them, dragging the roll along the floor because they’re just too big for him.

“I—” he begins, trying with all his might to make his brain cells work. He clears his throat and tries again but to no avail; the image is too much for him and before he notices it, his right hand is covering his mouth and he’s about to fall to his knees. “It’s— it’s okay, Shouyou-kun,” he manages to say against his palm. Shit, shit, _fuck_. “None of us knew this would happen.”

“Yeah, but still,” Shouyou all but whines. “I don’t want to impose.”

“You aren’t,” Atsumu rushes to say, dropping his hand to the side. Shouyou could barge into his apartment with a whole band and Atsumu wouldn’t feel like he’s imposing. “It’s okay, I’ll just take the couch.”

“I should be the one taking the couch. I’m, huh, a surprise guest at this point?”

Atsumu chuckles. He’s nervous, so, so nervous, but Shouyou still manages to make him laugh. Wholeheartedly and genuine.

“I don’t mind taking the couch. It’ll be just one night after all.”

Shouyou giggles.

“Yeah. Just one night.”

Atsumu can’t tell him how much he wants him to take the bed _with him_ , for this night to repeat in the future. To be able to hold him while he wears all his clothes because he looks so cute it should be illegal, to be able to move the hoodie aside and place a string of kisses along the golden column of his neck.

“Well, let’s sit down,” he says, clearing his throat. “No one wants to eat cold KFC, right?”

“You bought us KFC?!” Shouyou breathes out. Somehow, he manages to make his voice high pitched even when the sound is just above a whisper. “That’s so thoughtful of you, Atsumu-san! It must’ve been so hard to get a delivery…”

“Yeah, they’re full,” he confirms, shrugging. Shouyou doesn’t need to know that he called the delivery three hours before Shouyou got there because he knew half of Japan was ordering at the same time for Christmas Eve. “But a guy got his ways, you know?”

Shouyou raises his eyebrows with bad conceited admiration. He’s so easily impressed sometimes Atsumu feels guilty about bragging in front of him. Half the time he’s just joking, but Shouyou still looks impressed even though he knows he doesn’t really mean a quarter of the stuff that just came out of his mouth.

“So what movie will we be watching?” Shouyou asks, trying —and failing— to roll up the sleeves of the hoodie so they don’t fall over his fingers. “Or do we need to pick one?”

“I’ve already chosen. If it doesn’t bother you, that is,” Atsumu says, taking a few steps forward to pull at one of the sleeves. Shouyou follows the motion without even blinking, still staring at him with a puzzled look that has everything to do with the movie he’s chosen and nothing with the fact that Atsumu is touching him just like that. It’s natural and he’s only aware of what he’s doing when he’s rolling the sleeves up Shouyou’s arm until they’re at his wrist’s height. Atsumu stands still for a moment, looking at the smaller hand in between his, at the tanned skin that disappears underneath the hem of one of his favourite, oldest hoodies. Atsumu clears his throat, reaching out with his right hand to repeat the process on the other sleeve. “Do you like _The Nightmare Before Christmas_?”

Shouyou smiles from ear to ear, the glimmering to his eyes making Atsumu’s fingers tremble around the grip on the sleeve surrounding his wrist. He looks so damn _happy_ about such a simple thing that he doesn’t know where all his happiness comes from or where it’s stored. He knows Shouyou feels other things, that his entire existence isn’t limited to all those positive feelings Atsumu enjoys seeing —and experiencing— so much. But sometimes, just _sometimes_ , it’s easy to forget that Shouyou is human, too. Atsumu has seen him feeling despair, sadness, and anger. And still, having experienced all of that doesn’t erase the sunny image Shouyou projects in his mind.

“I love that movie!” he chirps. Atsumu lets go of the sleeve and watches as Shouyou attentively examines his work, evaluating the length of the sleeves, comparing them to see if they’re the same. He seems satisfied when he raises his eyes from them, amber irises fixing on Atsumu like he’s the luckiest person to ever exist. “It’s one of Natsu’s favourites!”

“That’s good to hear,” Atsumu chuckles, running the fingers of his right hand through his hair. He doesn’t know if it’s a nervous tick or something, but he feels compelled to do something to get rid of the tingle in the creases of his fingers, on the wavy-like feeling that tickles at the palm of his hand as a ghost of having been so close to Shouyou’s skin. “Let’s sit down and eat.”

“Yessir!”

Atsumu chuckles at the mock-salute Shouyou dedicates him. He behaves like a kid sometimes. He can’t say he doesn’t enjoy it.

As Atsumu sits down on the couch and fumbles around with the remotes to start watching the movie, Shouyou stretches his arm to grab the bucket of fried chicken placed right in front of him on the coffee table. He makes a tiny sound of effort as his fingers grip the edge and pull from the container to drag it closer to him.

Atsumu presses play at the same time Shouyou opens the bucket and extends it to him so he can grab a piece of fried chicken. A sideways glance towards Shouyou reveals the heartfelt smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, an expression so tender that Atsumu's fingers twitch around the remote of the television. He’s looking at _Atsumu_ with such a soft glint on his irises that his heart skips a beat and his stomach flops because there’s no way in hell he can see that and not feel anything.

“Atsumu-san?”

_Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?_

“Ah, sorry.”

“Are you okay?” he asks, tilting his head to the right. He always does that. He’s also still holding the steaming bucket out for Atsumu to take a piece of fried chicken.

“Yeah,” Atsumu answers, smiling. He places the remotes on the armrest of the couch, reaching out with his hand to grab a fried chicken thigh. He bites into it to distract himself from the cheery smile Shouyou is wearing now, tries to focus on the crunch of the crust to ignore the tiny sound of excitement that leaves his mouth when he digs into the bucket.

The movie keeps going and Atsumu couldn’t be less interested in it as Jack comes out of the well, surprising the inhabitants of Halloween and bringing the three hundred and sixty-five days of preparation to its highest point. He’s way more interested in the ear-to-ear smile plastered on Shouyou’s face and the absolute wonder shining in his eyes as he looks attentively at the screen. Atsumu knows he’s seen this movie more times than he can count and can probably recite and sing every single one of the songs without really putting his mind to it. But the fact that he seems so absorbed by the story and the animation makes something clench in his chest, reminding him that yes, he is indeed very in love with the man sitting next to him on his couch, wearing his clothes, and stuffing his face with fried chicken.

While Shouyou hums at the tune of Jack’s song and his loneliness without missing a note, Atsumu smiles softly. Oh, he’s in for a big heartbreak. He can feel it in the very marrow of his bones.

At some point, Shouyou leaves the empty bucket on the coffee table, wiping his greasy fingers with a napkin and whining at the poor result. He asks Atsumu to pause the movie and he fumbles a little with the oversized clothes before standing up and turning to him, big doe eyes looking at Atsumu as attentively as they were looking at the television.

“Atsumu-san, where’s the bathroom?”

Atsumu blinks. This feels so… _domestic_ , for some unknown reason, that the fact that he doesn’t know where the bathroom is manages to throw him off just a bit. Enough for him to have to go over the mental map of his own apartment before answering.

“Down the hallway. Second door to the left,” he answers, still a bit dumbfounded.

“Thank you!”

He disappears on the hallway, his frame sinking into the soft darkness covering those parts of the apartment that aren’t illuminated by the soft, blue glow coming from the television. Atsumu hears the slight screech of the handle and the water coming out of the faucet, the squishing of wet skin rubbing against wet skin with the slight viscosity of the soap coating his hands. The idea of how would Shouyou look reflecting on the mirror, dishevelled hair and sleepy eyes looking back at Atsumu while he’s hugging him from behind as he hides his face in the crook of his neck assaults his mind. It seems to feel his head with the flavours, the textures, the _smell_ , and he has to swallow back the pained groan that kicks the back of his throat.

That’s something he will never have. Why is he torturing himself like that?

Shouyou comes back a few moments later, smelling of Atsumu’s favourite soap. He flops back down on the couch, stretching his arms over his head while puffing out a small sound of effort. The roll of his sleeves slides down his arms, hanging lose a few centimetres over his elbows and Atsumu can’t help but ogle at the tanned skin and the muscles moving underneath like well-greased pieces of machinery.

“I’ll go wash my hands, too,” he blurts out.

* * *

Atsumu wakes up amidst the deep darkness of his living room with a weight pinning him down against the cushions of the couch. Said weight snores softly over his chest, the ghost of a warm breathing tickling through the hem of his shirt, sending small goosebumps across his sensitive skin and making him shiver slightly.

It takes him three seconds to fully wake up and realize that the warm body sprawled on top of him is Shouyou’s, his arms loosely looped around Atsumu’s middle and his nose pressed against his chest like it’s something he has done a thousand of times. His fluffy hair hovers over Atsumu’s lips, tingling at the soft, sensitive skin like a feather and he takes in a sharp inhale. His brain is fully awake now, but the rest of him seems to still be sunk in the deep and comfortable nothingness of slumber. It’s hard for him to be able to process the fact that his own arms are hugging Shouyou against him, their ankles hooked together in a mess of limbs that would surely make them fall face-first onto the ground if one of them decided to get up. He is able to process, however, the way Shouyou’s body seems to fit perfectly with his, the way his breath whistles softly on its way in and out of his nose, and the soft sound coming out of his lips as he mumbles in his sleep about a barbecue.

Atsumu’s right hand slides across his back, following the line of his spine. His fingers reach out, stretching over his scapula, thinking about that novel he read a while ago about it being what is left of the wings of an angel, the reminiscence of the time when humans could fly.

Shouyou still flies. He doesn’t need wings, he doesn’t need the vestiges of some fantasy extra parts in his body to be able to soar. He’s the closest thing to an actual crow Atsumu has ever found among all the people he has ever met, and the thought makes him smile softly. Shouyou, with his average height and his tanned skin like gold under the sun, with his vibrant orange hair, and those eyes that feel like an X-Ray machine every now and then, doesn’t need wings. He built them himself and they’re not for everyone to see. They’re a spectacle reserved for a few privileged people and Atsumu is lucky to be one of them.

If he could be just a little bit luckier, he would probably have Shouyou in all the ways he has been yearning for throughout all the years that have passed ever since he met him. Atsumu wants nothing but to make this fake relationship a reality in which he can sink into until there’s nothing else in his life. Nothing else besides the calming knowledge that Hinata Shouyou, this human that found new ways to fly albeit having only the vestiges of his wings in his back, loves him in the same way Atsumu loves him.

A small chuckle leaves his lips, making Shouyou groan in his sleep. He mumbles something that goes along the lines of ‘five more minutes’ and he stirs slightly, tightening his grip around Atsumu’s middle, burying his face against his chest as if Atsumu was a pillow he can shape to perfectly fit against the mounts and valleys of his face.

Atsumu’s hand moves from his back, sliding up and up until his fingers sink into his hair, the soft strands tickling against the sensitive sides of his fingers and underneath the creases. He massages Shouyou’s scalp absentmindedly in circular motions, the repetition numbing his fingertips until he isn’t able to feel the rubbing of his hair on his skin. Shouyou puffs out a sigh of content, cuddling a bit closer, tightening his grip a bit more, and Atsumu grits his teeth.

He wants this to be his. To be _really_ his to enjoy, to bask in. To have the privilege of waking up next to Shouyou and caress his cheek while he’s still asleep, to be able to be the first thing Shouyou sees when he opens his eyes under the soft, golden glow of the sun filtering through the curtains of his room. He wants to hear him speaking his first word after hours of being silent, to laugh at the croaky sound his throat would produce while he’s still sleepy and his eyelids are still heavy with slumber.

And so he allows himself to be selfish and take advantage of the situation. If only for one night. If only for _tonight_. Because he knows he shouldn’t allow himself such a thing, that he should draw the line right here and now, wake him up and send him to bed so he gets a good night of sleep.

But Atsumu won’t do that. Because he’s selfish and he wants this more than anything he’s ever wanted his whole life. Maybe even more than his professional volleyball player career.

He falls asleep again after pressing a soft, almost-not-there kiss to the top of Shouyou’s head, sighing in content at the purr that seems to leave his mouth at the contact of Atsumu’s lips against his hair. Only to wake up what feels like a few seconds later with the screeching of an alarm going off and the knee-jerk reaction of Shouyou when waking up.

“ _Ai, puta merda, tô acordado!_ _Totalmente acordado!_ ” Shouyou half groans half screams in a language Atsumu assumes it’s Portuguese. His hands are pressed against the cushions at each side of Atsumu’s middle and he somehow manages to kneel in between his legs, looking frantically at each side. His eyes fall on Atsumu’s grumpy face and he blinks, trying to kick his brain into motion. “Oh. I, uh— I might’ve forgotten to turn off my alarm…?”

Atsumu huffs.

“I can see that.”

Shouyou blinks a few times before scratching the back of his head with a bashful expression that makes Atsumu’s grumpiness melt a little.

“Sorry I didn’t turn it off,” he apologizes, blushing slightly. His voice is as croaky as Atsumu had imagined it and so raspy it sends a wave of goosebumps across his skin, heat dripping down his spine. “And, uhm, sorry for… falling asleep on top of you.”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, the flush dusting his cheeks spreads across his face, reaching the tip of his ears. The red masking his face is so deep and it seems to raise the temperature of his skin so much that his eyes shine with an unnatural glimmer that makes him look feverish.

“It’s okay, Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu says, smiling a little while using his elbows as anchorage to half sit on the couch. Shouyou leans back, sitting on his haunches to give him a small smile.

“D-Doesn’t it bother you?”

His question seems to give away his true worries. The expression slowly covering the blush on his face feels like a punch to Atsumu’s gut: what he really means is ‘ _do you think it’s okay when we’re fake dating? Wouldn’t it blur the lines?_ ’

“It’s okay,” Atsumu answers. To both the voiced question and the one he didn’t ask. “It’s only a problem if _you_ make it a problem.”

Shouyou blinks, somewhat taken aback by the involuntary harshness in Atsumu’s voice. The slight tremble of his lower lip before he presses them together reminds Atsumu of the fragility hidden within him. Shouyou is so strong he sometimes forgets he can feel hurt, too.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, averting his gaze.

“Ah, shit— I’m the one who’s sorry. I just haven’t had my morning coffee yet,” Atsumu apologizes, trying —and failing— to laugh as if what just happened had been nothing. He feels like crap when Shouyou looks at him again, slightly insecure like he’s stepping on thin ice while looking at the cracks extend from the sole of his boots. “It’s okay, though. I don’t mind. Really.”

Shouyou hums softly.

“Well, if you’re grumpy in the morning before having your coffee,” he begins, smiling once again. Atsumu’s chest unclenches and he lets go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding, “I can make some for both of us? Not to brag, but my coffee is amazing.”

Atsumu chuckles.

“I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha domestic AtsuHina go brrrrr
> 
> The line in Portuguese means "fuck, I'm awake! Completely awake!" by the way. Thanks to Aisem on Twitter for helping me out with the translation<3 I know a bit of Portuguese but I wasn't really sure. 
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_)! 


	6. Things he’s not used to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hello everyone! Tis I, Eli, coming at you with a new episode of the fic. Thank you all so much for your comments and love. I'm still surprised for the reaction dksfjhsdkf. Seriously, thank you so, so much. I love you. Lemme giv u kis. Smorch u3u

Atsumu presses his back against the backrest of the driver’s seat and casts a glance towards Shouyou through the corner of his eyes. He’s still out of the car Atsumu rented to get to Hyougo comfortably without having to deal with the shinkansen and the crowd of people gathering in the metro stations, and while Atsumu waits patiently for him to end his call, he pretends he isn’t eavesdropping his conversation.

“Mum,” he sighs, leaning against the hood of the car. “I told you before Christmas. I’m not gonna be there for New Year.”

He fumbles a little with the cord of his hoodie, pulling at it until the roll of the hood wrinkles completely. For some reason Atsumu doesn’t quite understand, he looks nervous.

“Yes, I explained why. No, mum— I’m going over Hyougo. I told you about meeting Atsumu-san’s family, remember?”

Some moments pass. Shouyou hums low in his throat and then giggles a little.

“Yes, I’m gonna meet my boyfriend’s family,” he says. Atsumu can almost see him rolling his eyes and although the image is funny, he still chokes on his own spit at the word _boyfriend_ being thrown around so easily. “No? Mum, stop. Stop! Don’t let Natsu do that! Jesus, she won’t let me live it down. She’ll say I’m with him only for his looks.”

Atsumu chokes again. What the hell are they even talking about?

“Okay, I gotta go. Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you as soon as I get there. Tell Natsu that I love her, okay? Love you, mum.”

Shouyou locks his phone and slides it into the pocket of his jeans. He turns towards the car and plops down on the passenger seat, closing the door with a hollow sound that seems to stretch in between them as Atsumu goes over the conversation he just overheard.

“So,” Atsumu begins a few moments later, clearing his throat. “You’re with me only for my looks, huh?”

“Atsumu-san!”

Atsumu chuckles as he revs up the car, the purring of the engine vibrating under the sole of his sneakers. Shouyou adjusts his seatbelt and lies back, shaking his head like he’s done with Atsumu’s antics. The gesture is so exaggerated that he can’t help but bark out a laugh, his stomach tensing and hurting at the laughing fit that shakes his shoulders.

“You’re such a drama queen,” Atsumu whines, turning the steering wheel to line up the car and finally hit the road. He casts a last glance towards his apartment complex and puffs out a small sigh of defeat; after this, it’s only a matter of time for him and Shouyou to have to pretend to break up and end on bad terms.

“Oh? _I’m_ the drama— Atsumu-san?”

“Mhm?” he hums. Shouyou’s voice sounds worried and he mentally beats himself up for allowing that little slip. The last thing he wants is for Shouyou to be worried. “Something came up, Shouyou-kun?”

“No, it’s just… are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Atsumu lies, smiling at the windshield. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off of the road because that means looking at Shouyou and he has this ability to see right through him so easily it actually scares him. Atsumu isn’t used to be afraid of Shouyou’s eyes— that’s something he leaves for their opponents. But _this_ is completely different to stand on the court from the other side of the net. “I’m just thinking about all the fuzz my mum will make once I tell her we’re _dating_.”

It’s not a lie, but it isn’t the truth either. He knows Osamu must have told her he’s dating someone —he probably made a lot of comments about how he’s finally dating the guy he rambled about for one year and a half—, but Atsumu still feels like he needs to tell her too. And do so _himself_.

Shouyou fumbles on his seat, clearing his throat as if he’s suddenly uncomfortable. Atsumu tries with all his might to not look at him but fails pathetically when he hears his nails scratching at the hem of his jeans right over his knee.

Shouyou is blushed from the neck to the line of his hair and his eyes look unnaturally shiny like he’s going down with a fever and Atsumu almost hits the breaks in the middle of the road.

“Shouyou-kun?”

“What if your mum doesn’t like me?” he whispers. Atsumu’s fingers tighten their grip on the steering wheel, his knuckles going slightly white under the strength imprinted on the motion. “What if she—”

“It’s going to be okay, Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu sighs, trying to relax his hands. He doesn’t want to damage them, even if these few days at his parents’ mean he won’t be able to practice as much as he would want to. He needs to take care of them. “I bet my mum will love you. Don’t worry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!” Atsumu reassures, smiling at him before turning his gaze back to the road opening up in front of them. He _feels_ Shouyou visibly relax on the seat right beside his and he lets go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding. There’s no doubt his mother will adore Shouyou and will probably praise the ground he walks on— she will probably tell him he can get something much better than Atsumu just to mess with him. It really is a shame that this is just a lie to get her to be quiet for a while. “She’s adorable, too. You’ll love her.”

“And your dad?”

“Imagine Osamu,” he begins, snickering under his breath. “But make him older and uglier.”

Shouyou hums low in his throat and Atsumu doesn’t need to look to know he’s holding his chin in between his thumb and his index finger, seemingly deep in thought.

“I don’t buy that.”

“What— _how_ can you not buy that?” Atsumu snorts.

“Well, both you and Osamu-san are really handsome,” Shouyou says, like it’s _nothing_ , like his words didn’t just destroy Atsumu’s entire existence just to shape it back up again in a matter of seconds. He chokes on his own intake of air, the oxygen finding the carbon dioxide in the middle of his throat and he’s about to start coughing when Shouyou continues. “So I sincerely doubt your dad is ugly. You both have… good genes, I guess.”

“W-Well, thank you? I guess?” Atsumu manages to push out.

“Atsumu-san, you’re blushing.”

“I am _not_.”

“You are!” Shouyou giggles.

“You do realize that I’m driving the car, right?”

“Is that a threat?”

Atsumu shakes his head, trying not to smile but failing, once again, pathetically.

“Don’t go around saying stuff like that or I might think you’ve fallen for me. Compliments are the getaway drug to get someone to crush on you,” he jokes.

He pretends he doesn’t see the blush creeping up Shouyou’s face. And once he can’t refuse to accept it anymore, he just blames it on the idea that he might have gone a little too far with his joke.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Shouyou pouts.

* * *

They arrive at Atsumu’s childhood house six hours after they hopped in the car. The moment Shouyou slides off of the passenger seat and the soles of his sneakers press against the gravel of the entryway making it crunch underneath the rubber, Atsumu takes a deep breath and unbuckles his seatbelt.

It’s showtime.

He pushes the car door open and hops off of the vehicle, closing the car behind his back. The anxiety that’s creeping up his neck has managed to turn his stomach into a bottomless pit and he feels like he’s falling through it into some other unknown dimension where everything is the same except that he has no one to cover for him and save his ass from his mother pestering.

The thought alone drowns the anxiety in sheer panic, which later on dies when he catches a glimpse of the smile Shouyou is currently directing at him, expectant, waiting for him to walk towards the traditional Japanese house he grew up in.

“You okay there, Atsumu-san?” Shouyou asks, taking a few steps forward. He surrounds the hood of the car until he’s close enough to him to fix his stare on Atsumu’s expression, his eyes roaming over his features as if looking for some sign of illness. Atsumu shifts his weight from one foot to the other, fumbling uncomfortably on his spot. “Atsumu-san?”

Atsumu bites the inside of his lower lip. He’s never felt this anxious before— he’s not used to it. It feels like his skin is crawling, his palms and the back of his neck covering in a cold, sticky sweat that makes him crave a shower more than anything he’s ever craved.

“I’m just anxious,” he admits. Shouyou deserves some sort of honesty coming from him if he’s gonna get his mother out of his case with the romantic partner thing. Atsumu finds honesty deeply scary; it’s lying in front of others, completely exposed for them to probe, to ask questions he does not want to answer. If feels like putting himself out there with nothing but his resolve of not lying, of not hiding anything, and he doesn’t feel capable of that. For Shouyou, though? He’s willing to try. He’s willing to do a lot of things for him, especially since Hinata Shouyou always seems satisfied with so little when it comes to personal issues. “I know my mum’s gonna love you, but…”

Shouyou tilts his head and the rubber of the sole of his shoes makes the gravel crunch beneath his feet when he comes a little closer, leaning against the hood of the car with a curious expression. His eyes, however, scream worry. Not for him, no; he’s too much of a good person to worry about himself in a moment like this. He’s worried about Atsumu.

“But?” he presses, his voice soft and tender like he’s talking to a wounded animal whose paw is trapped in a bear trap.

“What if she realizes it’s _fake_?” Atsumu manages to push out through his gritted teeth. It hadn’t occurred to him that his mother might notice that they’re not a real couple, and the moment he finally puts his finger on the thorn piercing his side, the words come out of his mouth without him really noticing them. They become true as soon as he puts this sudden thought into words, grimacing at the sour taste that coats his tongue when he presses his lips together in a tight, rigid line.

Shouyou hums softly. Atsumu doesn’t know if it’s to acknowledge his words or it’s just him thinking about something.

“Kiss me as soon as we enter the house,” Shouyou instructs. There’s a slight tremble to his voice that doesn’t go unnoticed, and Atsumu’s brows fly to his hairline upon hearing such a crude instruction being expressed in such tender words. This should not be something they discuss previously, as if it’s just one of their new plays. This is so much more than that and he hates that he can’t tell Shouyou how much that means to him. “Even if they’re not looking. It might help you relax…” he trails off, red spreading across his cheeks and the fringe of his nose when he notices what he just said. His teeth click when he closes his mouth abruptly. “I mean! W-We need to make it look natural, don’t we! We haven’t— we haven’t kissed that much and practice makes the master!”

He laughs a little, breathlessly, the blush on his cheeks spreading further until it reaches his ears. Atsumu feels a wave of affection crash against him, turning his stomach once more into a bottomless pit but this time, it feels like he’s hot all over. He swallows the thick saliva that has pooled on the back of his tongue, trying —and failing— to lubricate his throat.

It’s not the time to think about how Shouyou would look _that_ flushed beneath him, withering under his touch, moaning his name.

“Sounds good to me,” he says. His words seem to catch Shouyou a bit off guard, and he smiles effortlessly at him, taking a few steps forward to finally find him in front of the hood of the car. He leans a bit against it, the cold metal stinging against the naked edge of his hand and his pinkie, but he does his best to ignore the sharp kiss of the low temperature. “If ‘Samu asks, I’m the best kisser in the world.”

Shouyou giggles at that, visibly more relaxed.

“Damn right.”

Atsumu straightens his back and reaches out with his left hand, offering it to Shouyou. He yearns for the warmth of his skin to erase the stinging and prickling the metal of the car left on his palm and the edge of his hand, and it might be an excuse to just hold his hand and pretend everything is real, but at least he gets to get some of Shouyou’s physical affection. Even if it’s fake.

“Let’s go,” he encourages.

Shouyou’s eyes fall to his hand for a brief second before he reaches out, too, intertwining his fingers with Atsumu’s while a shy smile pulls at the corners of his lips. Not for the first time, Atsumu notices the small dimples sinking into his cheeks, and not for the first time, he feels the burning need of placing soft kisses over them.

“Let’s go, _boyfriend_ ,” Shouyou chuckles.

Atsumu’s heart skips a beat.

“Oh, I forgot,” he says, starting to walk, pulling from Shouyou’s hand to get him to follow him. “When we’re at home, call me Acchan.”

Images of the dream he had on Christmas Eve flash before his eyes; they’re somewhat faded, the corners of the memories blurry as if he’s looking at them from under the water. They send a shiver down his spine when he remembers the words that oneiric Shouyou had said, and as Atsumu tries not to let the tension reach his fingers, he pushes them into the deepest, darkest corner of his mind. He doesn’t need to feel guilty about taking advantage of this. It’s just a little piece of heaven. Just a little. Just to satisfy the always hungry monster his heart has turned into since they started this arrangement.

He doesn’t need to think about the meaning of that dream, either. He knows it goes along the lines of him being a coward, but this is _not_ the time to think about that. He’s not that much of a self-hating asshole to go around hurting himself more than he already is. 

“Acchan,” Shouyou repeats. Two syllables, separated by one repetition of the consonant. Atsumu can almost see the characters written over their heads in golden ink, soft and round on the edges, like a child’s calligraphy. “I like it. _Acchan_.”

Atsumu shivers.

“I don’t want to keep them waiting,” he wheezes. Shouyou raises his eyebrows but says nothing about his reaction. “Let’s get you to my family.”

* * *

As they promised— _agreed_ , he forces himself to remember, they kiss as soon as they step into the tokonoma. The contact is initially brief, as light as the wings of a moth, but it electrifies his whole system. It feels like putting his naked hand over a wire with direct current, and the moment the hairs of the back of his neck stand on end is when he knows they should part now or he would take it too far and ruin everything. He’s about to let Shouyou go, to drop the weak grip he holds on his waist, when Shouyou’s fingers grab the collar of his hoodie and pull down, his mouth opening against Atsumu’s, inviting him to explore, to give in to the raw desire that boils in the pit of his stomach. He swallows back the moan that pushes in the back of his throat, allowing himself to slide his tongue against Shouyou’s, his heart skipping a beat when Shouyou’s teeth scrape softly at his bottom lip.

“Ahem.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shouyou hisses against his mouth, low enough for only Atsumu to hear. He doesn’t really hear it, he _feels_ it spelt over his wet lips, over the electrified, oversensitive skin that seems to beat at the same pace as his heart.

“I didn’t know you were coming today, Hinata,” a soft voice says. Atsumu doesn’t recognize it right away, but something sparkles in Shouyou’s eyes and _oh_ , Atsumu loves how pretty happiness looks on him. He seems genuinely delighted to hear that voice, and when they both turn to the source of the sound, the smile connecting his ears could rip his face in two. “Hello, Atsumu-san.”

“Akaashi-san!” Shouyou chirps. The fact that he doesn’t push Atsumu’s hands away doesn’t go unnoticed, and when Akaashi’s eyes fall on the fingers tightly gripping Shouyou’s hoodie, he can see something flickering behind blue irises. “Hello! It’s been so long!”

Akaashi chuckles.

“We saw each other last month, Hinata. In the game against the Adlers, remember?” he kindly says. Atsumu finds himself feeling both admiration and jealousy. Admiration because Akaashi seems to have such a soft side to him and yet he tossed to someone like Bokuto for two years, dealing with his mood swings in a way he would never be able to. Jealousy because it doesn’t matter who he talks to, he’s always kind and understanding. It’s not the first time he wishes, deep down, that he could be a little softer around the edges of his cocky personality. “I even went to see you.”

“Oh, I remember,” Shouyou looks delighted. And he still hasn’t pushed Atsumu’s hands away. “But I miss my friends anyway!”

That seems to catch Akaashi off guard. His eyes glimmer from behind his glasses and a small blush spreads across his cheeks. Atsumu can only agree with the sentiment— doesn’t matter who it is, how hard their exterior is, people always soften at the sight of the true happiness that seems to ooze from Shouyou’s pores whenever he sees someone he holds dear.

“They’re waiting for you two,” the man says after clearing his throat. “’Samu is quite excited to see you.”

Atsumu finally drops his hold on Shouyou’s waist. His hands feel empty and cold as he takes a step backwards, coughing a little to clear his throat. There’s a lump there, pressing against his larynx, caused solely by anxiety.

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Shouyou says. Atsumu isn’t looking at him but he doesn’t need to; he can hear the smile in his voice.

“We’re in the living room,” Akaashi informs, smiling too. He gives them a nod before turning his back to them, walking towards the living room as if he’s grown up in this house, surrounded by the walls covered in family pictures and memories.

Atsumu’s always said he doesn’t need memories. But as the prospect of Shouyou sinking into them, his fingers running across the walls he so much adored when he was a kid, they come back in full force, raising a deep feeling of nostalgia that seems to choke him.

“Take off your shoes, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou instructs. He doesn’t seem fazed by Atsumu’s sudden lack of grasp on the present, nor doesn’t he seem bothered by it. He goes with the flow with the same naturalness someone who has done this a thousand times would show, and when Atsumu finally snaps out of it and turns his head towards him so fast he’s sure he’ll get a stiff neck, he only finds a patient smile gracing him like Shouyou’s an angel directly sent from heaven to save him from his own stupidity. “We don’t want to keep them waiting, remember?”

“Y-Yeah.”

As Shouyou takes off his shoes and slides into the slippers, Atsumu does the same thing in a mechanical manner that makes the other’s eyes glimmer with an unasked question. He’s sure he won’t ask it, though; or at least not right now. Shouyou has a natural talent at this of staying out of people’s business unless they concern him. It’s like he knows he shouldn’t press any matter further because he _knows_ , too, that he’ll get an answer sooner or later.

The problem is Atsumu doesn’t really know where his anxiety comes from. Granted, there’s the thing where his mother could find out about their relationship being fake, and there’s the thing where he’s still savouring the taste of Shouyou’s mouth over his tongue, but there’s something else. And the fact that he can’t quite put his finger on it makes him itch all over.

There’s also this thing about Shouyou breaking his own rule; they had agreed on _not_ using tongue when kissing and Shouyou was the first to olympically ignore that fact. Atsumu won’t complain, however; if it does not bother Shouyou, it does not bother him.

The way to the living room is not as long as he would have liked. He can count the number of steps that take him from the tokonoma to the paper door that divides the main corridor from the place his whole family is currently gathering while being asleep, but for some reason, the number doesn’t fit with the one in his memory. Probably because of the fingers intertwined with his, probably because of the overwhelming warmth that seems to crawl its way up the nerves of his arm like water running against the force of gravity. Probably because of the soft hum vibrating softly in Shouyou’s throat as they walk together like they’ve done this a thousand times.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Shouyou assures, giving his fingers a light squeeze. His skin is calloused and the furthest thing from soft, but Atsumu feels his stomach get all giddy nonetheless. “Stop stressing out, _Acchan_.”

Atsumu blushes at the nickname. Shouyou slides the door open.

The chattering Atsumu couldn’t hear over the sound of his heart hammering away in his chest stops dead in its tracks as soon as the people gathered in the room fix their eyes on them. Atsumu immediately recognizes some faces that don’t belong to his immediate family— a few uncles, his mother’s brothers, a few kids that look at them from one corner. His cousins. Some of his friends from high school— Suna, Aran, Akagi, and…

His throat constricts. Yellow eyes look at him from the other corner of the room, silver hair shining softly under the lights recessed to the ceiling.

 _Shinsuke_.

He hadn’t seen Kita Shinsuke since they broke up a bit before he got into the Black Jackals. He was well aware of him being the one to provide Osamu with his rice for Onigiri Miya, and although neither of them holds any grudges against the other —which Shinsuke is completely entitled to but chooses not to because he’s just _that_ good—, being in the same room as him is still awkward. Atsumu still hasn’t forgiven himself for what he did to him.

“Atsumu!” his mother chirps, catching his entire attention as he desperately tries to ignore the piercing look Kita has fixed on him. “You’re finally here! Keiji-kun told us you were at the door and we were wondering what took you so long—”

“ _Mum_ ,” Osamu complains, rolling his eyes. “Let ‘Tsumu breathe. He just got here.”

“Oh, that’s right!” she answers, blinking at them. Her eyes fix on Atsumu first and then, ever so slowly, her stare moves to Shouyou. He fidgets under her gaze and Atsumu relates to the sentiment— there’s something about her eyes that makes people feel like they’re under a microscope. “This must be Shouyou-kun, am I right?”

Her gaze fixes on their linked hands.

Atsumu clears his throat before trying to speak, but is cut off by Shouyou the moment he opens up his mouth to speak:

“Yup!” he chirps, all signs of discomfort gone as if they had never been there in the first place. “Hinata Shouyou,” he introduces himself, smiling brightly, broadly, so much that almost everyone in the room is nearly blinded by it. “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for this week! I'll see you all next Friday with a new episode. Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_)!


	7. Words of affirmation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> I'm so sorry for not answering to your comments! I've been awfully busy lately because I'm painting my house, and it's been literal decades since the last time we did this. So! a lot of work. Plus college is really absorbing. I hate it here. But!! I will answer them this weekend because I have a free week, yaaaaay!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading and leaving such pretty comments on the fic. They make me incredibly happy! 
> 
> Without further ado, the episode! Enjoy and see ya at the end notes!

To anyone’s surprise, Miya Hanako adopts Shouyou into her family five seconds after he finishes introducing himself. She doesn’t say anything for a while, just looking at him with attentive eyes, analysing him as her stare roams over his frame from head to toe. Through their linked hands, Atsumu can feel the tension of his fingers and the erratic beating of his heart, his pulse hammering away in the framework of veins on the inside of his wrist. His expression, however, stays as calm and cheery as always and Atsumu can’t do anything but feel a deep admiration for his ability to put on a mask to his real emotions in face of the thing that pushes him off of the edge of anxiety.

“Miya Hanako,” she answers after a few long seconds of silence. As soon as she speaks, Atsumu lets go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He was well aware of his mother, the toughest one to convince, would love him, but the doubt was still there. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Shouyou-kun. You can call me Hanako if you like.”

He blushes slightly, probably because of the big, fat smile his mother directs at Shouyou. Her hazel eyes glimmer with something Atsumu had only seen the two times she’d gotten introduced to her son’s boyfriends: the look she’s giving Shouyou is the same she gave Atsumu when he introduced her to Shinsuke and the same she gave Osamu when he introduced her to Akaashi.

“Aye, Shouyou-kun!” Osamu greets, rescuing Shouyou from his sudden loss of speech. He smiles softly at him, raising his eyebrows slightly upon seeing his hand connected to Atsumu’s. “’Tsumu, hey. How was the trip?”

Atsumu shrugs.

“Quicker than I’d thought,” he answers, not giving that much details. His family doesn’t need to know that they stopped in a road restaurant to stuff their faces because they were both starving albeit having taken a good, filling breakfast early in the morning. They would have gotten there earlier if their stomachs didn’t have that much power over their brains. “I expected the roads to be _full_ but they turned out to be almost empty.”

His mother hums in acknowledgement.

“Well, the weather forecast _did_ say there would be a lot of snow these days,” she comments, imitating Atsumu and shrugging her left shoulder as if trying to not give importance to the topic. “It’s a good thing you guys travelled a few days before New Year.”

“It was Shouyou-kun’s idea,” Atsumu chuckles, giving him the side-eye when he lets out a soft _meep_ upon being acknowledged in the conversation once more. His amber irises fix on Atsumu as he tilts his head slightly to the left to look at him, a soft blush spreading across his cheeks. Atsumu gets the burning need of kissing him again. “Isn’t my boyfriend the smartest?”

Atsumu’s fingers let go of Shouyou’s, and after a few seconds of quick thinking, he slings his arm around his shoulders, pressing him against the hollow of his ribs with a proud smile. The gesture seems a bit too much for him, knowing damn well that he’s taking advantage of the situation, but when Shouyou surrounds his middle with his own arm and squeezes tenderly, his entire body relaxes.

“Oh, wow. Gross,” Osamu pretends to gag, surrounding his neck with his fingers while rolling his eyes so hard Atsumu is scared they’ll pop out of their sockets. “Please keep PDA to the minimum in my presence. I might puke.”

“Occhan!” his mother complains, pursing her lips. “You have _no right_ to say that. Do you remember how disgustingly lovey-dovey you and Keiji used to be?”

“That’s different, mum,” he whines. “I’m the youngest and therefore, the cutest.”

“Wow, that was mature as fuck, ‘Samu. You went full-on youngest sibling there.”

“Shut your trap.”

“ _Children_.”

“ _Acchan._ Language.”

His mom’s and Shouyou’s voices are heard at the same time, and Atsumu and Osamu blink in sudden confusion. Atsumu is well aware of his mother’s reluctance to the use of _bad words_ , and he’s also well aware of the fact that Shouyou doesn’t use them often. At least not in Japanese. However, he still can’t get his softly whispered _fuck_ out his head— especially since he murmured it against his lips. Atsumu has almost memorized the way his mouth moved over his, the shape of the word engraved on his skin and his nerves.

“Sorry, love,” he apologizes, smiling sheepishly. He leans in a bit to press a brief kiss to the top of his head, and the sharp intake of breath that hisses on Shouyou’s nose doesn’t go unnoticed. Did he overstep a line? Is he pushing the boundaries too much? “And sorry, mum.”

She gives him a dismissive curlicue of her wrist. He knows she doesn’t _really_ mind his cursing, but he also knows that she won’t allow it in the presence of the youngest children. And also not in her presence if she’s sober.

“Let’s get Shouyou-kun to your father and your friends, Atsumu. It’s time for them to meet your _famous_ boyfriend.”

Atsumu notices the pang of anxiety that bites at his stomach but smiles nonetheless. The soft squeeze Shouyou gives him upon noticing the sudden tension of the muscles of his back is enough to make him feel more relaxed and although he doesn’t feel ready to introduce Shouyou to his father, the rest of the family, and his high school friends, he knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He wonders if his mother decided to invite them just to embarrass him. They’re all very _informed_ about his embarrassing crush on Shouyou.

It goes as terribly as he expected. His family isn’t so bad; they ask Shouyou a few questions —how old he is, where does he play, where did they meet—, congratulate Atsumu on his catch, and one of his older cousins, a fourteen-year-old girl, blushes upon the sight of the cheery smile Shouyou directs at her. Atsumu understands the sentiment; he still feels giddy all over when he’s the objective of that ten thousand watts smile.

His high school friends, however, show him no mercy. Atsumu thinks, as Suna slings his left arm over Shouyou’s shoulder, joking about how much of a pain in the ass he was to him the two times their teams played against each other, that the only reason they don’t mention anything about his embarrassing, seven-year-old crush on him is because they _assume_ Shouyou already knows.

Shinsuke smiles at Shouyou after they’ve all introduced themselves to him and his heart breaks a little when he congratulates him on his relationship with Atsumu. He never felt anything else for Shinsuke other than a deep respect and a sheer admiration that he mistook for romantic feelings that later on proved themselves to be just his burning need of getting rid of a crush he knew wasn’t going anywhere. The fact that Shinsuke doesn’t hate him for what he did to him still baffles him— he’s entitled to it and yet, he’s just too much of a good person to do so.

Atsumu knows that he doesn’t deserve such kindness. And yet here he is, basking in it because he knows he is not worthy. That doesn’t stop him from returning Shinsuke’s smile, from thanking him for his kindness and the sincere words of appreciation for his ‘new’ relationship.

“So,” Aran begins, smiling at Shouyou. “How long have you guys been dating?”

Shouyou smiles, excited.

“Two months now!” he informs, his ten thousand watts smile blinding every single person in a four metres radius. “We had our _monthversary_ on December fifteenth!”

He giggles at the made-up word and hugs Atsumu like he’s trying to show him off. Atsumu _knows_ it’s fake, he’s aware that this is just an act to fool them into thinking they’re actually dating, but his heart skips a beat nonetheless, his stomach doing somersaults at the idea of Shouyou being _proud_ of having a relationship with him. It’s funny, he thinks as he blushes slightly, that he’s getting exactly what he wants but none of it is real. It’s almost ridiculous, too, that he feels it deep in the marrow of his very bones as if his heart and his brain had finally found common ground on deciding to ignore the obvious, to ignore that Shouyou doesn’t consider him as anything but his friend.

“How come you didn’t tell us before, Atsumu?” questions Suna, raising his eyebrows. His eyes are fixed on Atsumu, the weight of his analysis making him squirm uncomfortably in his spot. “Knowing you, I’d expected you to post it on your official Twitter account or something.”

Atsumu coughs.

“We didn’t want to let anyone know until things became… serious,” he answers, shrugging, lying through his teeth. He can’t go ahead and tell his friends that he didn’t tell them before because it’s _fake_. What he hates the most is knowing that he would have, in fact, screamed at the top of his lungs that he’s dating the most precious human being to ever walk the earth if it were real. “So we kept it a secret.”

“Acchan insisted it was more romantic that way,” Shouyou jokes naturally.

“You two are disgustingly cute,” Osamu complains, scrunching his nose as if someone put a rotten fish in front of his face. “’Tsumu, I’m begging you, _please_ stop being all lovey-dovey.”

“It’s my revenge,” Atsumu retorts, smiling like a fox as he wraps his arms around Shouyou’s waist. A sharp intake of breath hisses through his nose, and the accelerated beating of his heart doesn’t go unnoticed; Atsumu can feel it hammering against his own chest. “You kept kissing Akaashi in front of everyone. It was disgusting. Suck it up, you scrub.”

“Aw, c’mon Atsumu,” Suna laughs. There’s a glint to his eyes that makes Atsumu flinch slightly. “You’ve never been one to be all lovey-dovey. You weren’t like that when you dated Kita-san.”

 _There it is_.

Atsumu’s back tenses at the mention of his past relationship with his senpai. The last thing he wanted was for Shouyou to find out like this; the worst thing about it is that he doesn’t mind Shouyou knowing about his past. The thing is that _he_ wanted to be the one who revealed that part of his life so he could select the details he wanted to tell him. Shouyou deserves to know the truth because he’s Atsumu’s friend, and the fact that he has a big, fat crush, edging on _actually being in love with him_ has nothing to do with it. They’re more intimate than he expected already, and something like that should have been _his_ secret to reveal.

“Don’t be like that, Suna,” Shinsuke chuckles. The cup of champagne in his hand looks out of place with the almost too-good-for-his-own-sake image he always projects. “Atsumu was young. We both were. Besides, we didn’t know if PDA was accepted in his family.”

“Yeah, it’s not like Japan is gay friendly, y’know,” Osamu agrees. Atsumu does not want to hear it. He’s got enough with the rumours of him and Omi’s ‘relationship’ the paparazzi have made up to make him look like some sort of desperate gay in the eyes of the public. Especially since his personality rubs a lot of folks out there wrong. They’d love to have something to hate him even more. “I still demand for you both to stop being so sappy. I’m gonna puke.”

“Osamu-san,” Shouyou begins, parsimoniously. There’s a malicious smile pulling at the corners of his lips and Atsumu has to swallow the sudden wave of lust that presses at the back of his throat, turning his stomach into a bottomless pit. “Suck it up.”

His group of friends explodes in a bark of laughter that grabs the attention of the rest of the people in the room, and as Suna bends by the half to wheeze out a burst of laughter that seems to push his lungs out of his body, Osamu makes a faux pained expression while putting his hand over his heart.

* * *

“Well,” Atsumu begins, scratching at the back of his neck without looking at Shouyou. “We’ll have to share a bed.”

Shouyou takes a look around his childhood bedroom and says nothing for a few minutes. His eyes roam over the mellow-yellow walls and the posters nailed to them, most of them of bands he’s probably never heard about in his life or famous volleyball players from around the world. There are framed pictures hung beside the closet and in most of them, the smiling faces of Atsumu and Osamu look back from the static images held in time without ever getting old. There are a few trophies on top of a shelf and some diplomas he got when he won a few prizes for being the best setter of the prefecture, all of them covered in a slight patina of dust.

His desk is empty now, but back when he lived there, there used to be books put on top of each other on one corner and sticky notes glued to every accessible surface with his messy calligraphy depicting formulas and vocabulary. His laptop used to sit in the middle of all the chaos and the empty space makes a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia clench his heart.

The last things Shouyou’s eyes fix on are the nightstand, with a solitary, old lamp, and then the bed. The grey cover is perfectly folded under the two white pillows; it looks kind of impersonal and strange as if this was the room of someone else and not Atsumu’s.

“There’s no space for a futon, huh,” Shouyou mutters. Out of the window over the desk and through the blinds, Atsumu takes a quick peek outside: the night is as dark as ink. There’s no moon tonight and the clouds cover the stars. “It’s okay, I don’t mind sharing a bed.”

“Are you sure?” Atsumu asks. He’s leaning against the threshold of the door, his arms crossed over his chest to hide the fact that his fingers are trembling. “I can crash on the couch—”

“Atsumu-san,” Shouyou stops him, turning on his heels to look at him with a soft smile plastered on his face. “I really don’t mind. This wouldn’t be the first time we share a bed, would it?”

He misses his voice when he calls him ‘Acchan’. He does not show it.

“True that,” he agrees, smiling at him. “Now, the bathroom is at the end of the corridor. You can take a shower first if you want… god knows _I_ need one.”

“Oh, cool!” he chirps, taking a few steps forward to drop his bag on the bed. The creak of the zipper fills the room for a few moments and then he’s rummaging through his possessions, probably looking for his shampoo, his soap, and his toothbrush. “Do I need to bring a towel or…?”

“Nah, there’re enough in the bathroom. Don’t worry.”

“Okie dokie!” he singsongs. “I’ll be back in a few!”

Twenty minutes later, they’re both laying under the covers, occupying opposite sides of the bed. Atsumu can almost feel his ass hang out of the edge of the mattress, but he discovers he doesn’t really mind if that means Shouyou is comfortable. The sheets smell like laundry detergent and fabric softener, a fragrance so slight that he’s overwhelmed by the smell of Shouyou’s soap and shampoo. It seems to overcharge his senses, to lure him so he gives in to the temptation of scooping a little closer and sink his nose in between the unruly mop of orange hair.

Shouyou’s right hand serves as a support for his cheek against the pillow and although the room is dark, Atsumu knows he’s smiling softly. Shouyou’s always smiling.

“Say, Atsumu-san,” he begins. _Acchan_ , he wants to correct. Atsumu swallows the correction and hums to let him know that he’s listening. “Why didn’t you tell me that Kita-san was your ex?”

Atsumu expected this question. He didn’t expect, however, to hear it so soon. He had hoped Shouyou would leave the topic pass for a few days or even weeks, to question him when he least expected it. That’s what Atsumu would have done. Hinata Shouyou, however, is too good to think like that.

He puffs out an exhausted sigh. He doesn’t mind Shouyou asking about it, but he still needs to find the right words to explain his reluctance to tell him the truth. Or half of it.

“I—” Atsumu begins in a soft whisper that sounds too low for his own ears. He clears his throat and takes in a deep breath, trying again. “I wasn’t sure about sharing that part of myself.”

Atsumu thinks about the time someone told him everyone hated him. How his personality pushed everyone away until the only person that stood by his side was Osamu, the only one who really knew him, too. To think that he could give them a whole new reason to despise him even more, albeit him saying that he didn’t care about what others could think of him, chilled him to the bone. To be the target of a hatred deep-rooted in their culture was not something he wanted to experience; he had seen the way everyone treated guys that turned out to be a bit girly, guys that liked feminine things. He had seen the way his classmates had isolated a girl that had come out of the closet as a lesbian— or rather, had been _dragged_ out of the closet by her ‘friends’. He admitted he was a coward around that time: the fear of being ignored, isolated, cast out, made him swallow the need of standing up for those outcast kids.

He closes his eyes. The memories sting more than he will ever admit out loud, even to himself. The fact that he grew a pair and decided to publicly date Shinsuke in his last year was mellowed by him being a national celebrity of some sorts: kids didn’t want to go against the captain of the volleyball team. And his relationship was never too public anyway— he never denied the rumours but never confirmed them either. He just let them pass.

Does that count as publicly date a man? God, he was _such_ a coward.

“Were you afraid?” Shouyou asks. There’s a tenderness to his voice that prompts Atsumu to open his eyes and look at him. He can’t see his face amidst the bluish darkness covering his room like a velvet blanket, but he knows he doesn’t judge him. “Of the reaction of your peers, I mean.”

“Japan isn’t very LGBT friendly, y’know?” Atsumu breathes out. Shouyou’s soft voice seems to lure him to tell him everything, to lay bare and exposed in front of his eyes for him to dissect and analyse him in every way he pleases. He refrains from doing so. It’s too soon, there’s too much to process to do it now. “I was afraid you’d— I don’t know.”

Shouyou hums and scoops a bit closer. Atsumu feels the overwhelming warmth coming from his skin seeping into his own, pulling at the centre of his chest like Shouyou is a flame and Atsumu is nothing but a weak moth, relentlessly attracted by it.

And so he gives in and moves a bit closer until his knees bump softly against his.

“It’s okay, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou coos softly. When his left hand cradles the right side of Atsumu’s face, he flinches a little. He wasn’t expecting physical contact in this situation, let alone in his _bed_. “I would never— gay, bisexual, straight… you’re still Atsumu-san. I don’t care about your sexual orientation. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

 _Friends_.

The word sits wrong on Atsumu’s brain. It also breaks his heart a little, even when Shouyou’s warm hand is tenderly pressed against his cheek.

“Yeah, we’re friends,” he agrees, trying —and failing— to smile. He’s thankful for the darkness that erases their physical forms, thankful for the fact that Shouyou can’t see his eyes. Shouyou can’t see the sadness that overcomes him and he would not want it any other way. “Thanks for being so understanding.”

“Hey,” Shouyou whispers. “I’m here for you. It’s okay.”

A few moments pass. Atsumu’s beating heart is about to push its way out of his throat and run away to some place where it doesn’t need to be constantly broken by the only person Atsumu wants to have but can’t.

“C’mere,” Shouyou prompts, guiding his head to rest against his shoulder. Atsumu is too baffled to do anything against it and so he lets him do as he pleases; he allows Shouyou to scoop a little closer, to entangle their ankles together, and he allows himself to bury his nose in the crook of his neck while Shouyou’s fingers comb his hair delicately, massaging his scalp in constant, circular motions that slowly start to make him doze off. “There’s nothing you need to hide from me, Acchan. I’m never gonna judge you.”

Atsumu doubts that. But still, he wraps his arms around Shouyou’s middle and presses him against his body, fusing their frames until there’s not a millimetre between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's been all from me for today. I might publish another episode this week... let's call it an extra. I don't know when, though. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed today's update <3
> 
> Come scream at me on[ Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_)!
> 
> See ya next week! 


	8. Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!! It's time for this week's episode!!
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for all the comments! I'm so happy that you like this story ♥ 

Atsumu wakes up amidst the bliss of strong arms holding him tight, his chin buried in a soft mop of orange hair, and his hands pressed against the naked skin of Shouyou’s back underneath the pyjama shirt. His breath tickles against the dampen hem of his shirt, Shouyou’s face buried on his chest while he’s half lying on top of him.

_Holy fucking shit_ _—_

There’s a knock on the threshold of his door that startles him and makes Shouyou stir in his sleep. He whines softly, his grip tightening a bit around Atsumu’s middle.

“Boys?” his mother’s voice comes through the closed paper door, barely muffled by the distance. “It’s time for breakfast. Get up, you two! You’ll miss today’s fatty tuna.”

“Five more minutes,” Shouyou mumbles against his chest.

“Uh, we’ll— we’ll be there in a few minutes, mum!” Atsumu answers. Why is Shouyou _not_ awake? He’s the one who always wakes up at the same time every day, he’s the one with a strict exercise routine and an even stricter meal plan. The fact that he seems so adamant about keep sleeping throws Atsumu off a bit.

“Twenty minutes, Atsumu!” his mother chirps. A few seconds later, he hears her footsteps going away the corridor and the room falls silent once again.

Atsumu’s eyes avert from the door and fix on the mop of orange hair that invades his vision. Shouyou’s shampoo smells like herbs, and the strands are soft as they brush over his skin and tickle on his lips. His back moves slowly at the pace of his breathing, inflating and deflating with each intake of air that whistles softly through his nose.

“Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu whispers, barely moving his lips as if to not wake him up. Which is, actually, the contrary of what he really wants to do. “Shouyou-kun, it’s time for breakfast.”

“Don’t wanna,” Shouyou whines. His hold tightens a little more, pushing the air out of Atsumu’s lungs with a silent wheeze. “Too comfortable.”

Atsumu can relate— would relate if his stomach wasn’t complaining, furiously demanding for some food to fill what seems to be a void that has replaces his digestive system. He breathes out a small chuckle as his hands slide slowly out from underneath Shouyou’s shirt like he’s trying to savour the few moments his fingertips still have to touch his skin directly.

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asks, letting his hands fall on the mattress. Now that they’re free, he doesn’t know what to do with them. Should he shake him awake? Should he poke him on the cheek? “Mum made breakfast for us.”

“What’s for breakfast?” Shouyou questions. His voice sounds less sleepy and more attentive now.

Atsumu smiles. Count on food to lure Hinata Shouyou out of his sleepy state.

“Fatty tuna,” Atsumu informs. His stomach growls in protest at the mere mention of his favourite food. “C’mon, Shoukkun, we need to get up or else we’ll starve until lunch.”

Shouyou’s body tenses against Atsumu and he feels a pang of worry divide his chest in two: Atsumu realizes way too late how he just called him and his heart skips a beat when he thinks that maybe Shouyou doesn’t like being called like that. Against everything he expected, however, Shouyou raises his head slightly, replacing his cheek with his chin on Atsumu’s chest, looking at him through half-lidded eyes.

“Isn’t fatty tuna your favourite food?” he inquires.

Atsumu raises his eyebrows. Did he ever tell him that? Honestly, fuck that, why isn’t he interrogating Atsumu about this new nickname?

“Yeah?”

“Breakfast.”

 _Oh_. _He doesn’t mind_.

“Also,” Shouyou continues, smiling lazily at him before moving his hands to let him go, his palms pressing at each side of Atsumu’s body as he pushes to hold his weight on his arms, “I like that new nickname.”

 _Fuck_.

He slides off of the bed, stretching his arms over his head until his vertebrae pop. Atsumu’s eyes follow the motion of the shirt lifting over the waistband of his trousers, his gaze fixed on the slightly paler patch of skin visible. The muscles underneath tense when he flexes his back and Atsumu’s mouth goes dry.

“I’ll hit the shower first, if you don’t mind,” Shouyou informs, turning on his heels to look at him. Atsumu’s eyes snap quickly at his face as if caught red-handed, and he nods in agreement before Shouyou has a chance to comment on the guilty shining in his irises. “Good morning, by the way.”

“Morning, Shouyou-kun.”

Shouyou purses his lips, looking like a petulant child who just got their favourite toy taken away.

“What?” Atsumu chuckles.

“I like it when you call me Shoukkun,” he whines.

_Hello, god? It’s me again, Atsumu._

He puffs out a sigh, letting his head plop back onto the pillows. He’s not sure if Shouyou can see his expression from his position, but he’s surprised to discover that he does not mind if he can.

“Morning, Shoukkun.”

Shouyou giggles a little before grabbing his toiletry bag from the desk, his laughter following him as he leaves through the door and makes his way down the corridor towards the bathroom.

“You’re killing me, Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu mumbles to the now empty room. Even though the sunlight falls in broad angles through the window, casting a soft, golden glow over every frame at its disposition, the place feels cold and dark without his presence.

Everything Shouyou touches becomes a source of energy and warmth, and as Atsumu rolls on his bed, he discovers Shouyou’s scent has seeped through his clothes and the pillow.

He, too, becomes a source of energy and warmth upon the realization that they _cuddled_ the whole night.

Once Atsumu is done with his shower and is _decent_ enough to go have breakfast with his family and his fake-but-I-wish-it-was-real boyfriend, he walks down the corridor and follows the path he knows well enough to walk it while sleeping. The smell of recently cooked rice, tuna, miso soup, and tea guides his nose while he makes his way through the Miya household, hands in his pockets while he hums softly to himself.

He’s surprised to find that they haven’t started eating; his mother, his father, Osamu, Akaashi, and Shouyou are all sitting at the table, chatting cheerfully while waiting for _him_. He’s completely sure he took more than twenty minutes to get there since he had to wait for Shouyou to finish his quick shower and since later on, he took his sweet time in the bathroom as well.

“You’re waiting for me?” he says, dramatically, putting his right hand over his heart. “I’m not worthy.”

“Sit your ass down, drama queen,” Osamu huffs. His hand and Akaashi’s are linked together over the table. _Disgusting_. “I’m fucking hungry.”

“Osamu. Language.”

“Sorry, mum.”

“Stop apologizing and start using a more _proper_ language, ‘Samu,” Akaashi chuckles.

“ _Kei_ , not you too…”

“Yeah, ‘Samu, listen to your _fiancé_ ,” Atsumu jokes, walking towards his chair right besides Shouyou’s. He plops down and presses his back against the backrest, smiling like a fox as his eyes fix on his twin’s, sitting across the table. “It’s for the better.”

“Don’t be mean, Acchan, it’s too early,” Shouyou complains in a childish voice. Atsumu pouts at him, earning a soft giggle coming from him. “Be nice to your brother.”

“Getting roasted by your partner squad,” Atsumu sighs, shaking his head in faux disbelief. “Raise your hand if you belong to it.”

Osamu, his father, and Atsumu raise their hands.

* * *

They’re sitting in the living room, sharing a nice cup of coffee after lunch, when his mother decides to further embarrass him.

“Say, Shouyou-kun,” she begins, smiling widely. She knows exactly what she’s about to do, and although Atsumu wants to stop her, he would put himself on the spot and would awaken Shouyou’s curiosity. He has no other choice rather than to let his mother speak. “Did you know Atsumu over here used to talk _a lot_ about you?”

Shouyou raises his eyebrows from behind the brim of his cup of coffee, his eyes sliding ever so slowly towards Atsumu. They’re sitting together on the couch so he has to crane his neck a little to look at him, and not for the first time since he sat there, he curses Osamu for letting him all alone at his mother’s mercy. He _knew_ this was coming and he decided to bail out and take Akaashi to go ‘sigh-seeing’. Sight-seeing his ass, he just wanted his mother to torture him and then find out about all the juicy, embarrassing details when he finally came back from wherever he went to.

As his mother expected, a dark blush creeps up his cheeks and reaches to the tip of his ears. He’s suddenly sweating.

“Is that so?” Shouyou muses, smiling from behind his cup. “I didn’t know I made such an impact on you, Acchan.”

Oh, so now he’s teasing him. Great.

“I did promise to toss to you,” he retorts, shrugging despite the hot blush covering his face. He tries to play it cool even though he knows no one in the room will believe him. No one can say Atsumu doesn’t make an effort to look like he’s unbothered by the situation. “I think that’s enough to know you made _quite_ an impact on me, Shoukkun.”

“Aw, why’re you blushing, Atsumu? It’s true, isn’t it?” his mother chuckles, sipping at her coffee like she didn’t just embarrass the hell out of Atsumu.

“Mum, you can’t go around saying those things,” he complains. It’s futile, he knows, but he does it nonetheless.

“That doesn’t matter now,” a delicate hand does a dismissive curlicue in his general direction as if she’s trying to physically get the topic away from her. “You both are dating now and that’s what matters.”

Her words sting and he does his best to not show it. It _does_ matter since this whole thing is a big, fat lie, and he feels sort of guilty about leading his mother on and making her believe that he’s actually dating the guy he’s been crushing on for seven years. Even so, the fact that he gets to enjoy the literal crumbs of what he could have if his relationship with Shouyou was real, keeps him from stopping. He knows it’s not healthy to dwell on these fleeting moments, on the short but deeply meaningful touches they share. It’s too hard for him to refuse to all of those things and he’s a weak man.

The weakest man to ever walk the earth.

He’s so weak that the perspective of Shouyou finding out about his true feelings scares him to no end. He doesn’t want him to know, doesn’t want him to think that he’s been taking advantage of their arrangement because it’s true. That’s the only true thing between them and Atsumu feels like trash because of it.

Shouyou chuckles, dragging him out of his thoughts. Atsumu’s eyes follow him as he places his cup softly on the coffee table, his right hand going to rest over Atsumu’s knee. He gives it a light, tender squeeze, and he can feel his heart leaping to his throat.

“Well, Acchan always gets what he wants. Don’t you, love?” Shouyou says, smiling broadly at him.

 _I can’t have you, though_.

“Hell yeah,” he answers, putting on a fake smile.

What else can he do? Stand up, reveal that this whole thing is a lie, scream that he’s in love with the personification of the sun, and lose Shouyou in the process? He’s weak and a coward and the last thing he wants is for Shouyou to get out of his life.

Atsumu bites the inside of his lower lip and hides the gesture with the brim of his cup. He takes a sip and ignores the scalding hot liquid covering his tongue, pushing it to the back of his throat. He swallows, noticing that the rich taste of the beverage has disappeared and what remains is the dull, unpleasant taste of ashes coating his taste buds.

A few hours later, the guests come back to their place. The house is full of life again, with kids running from here to there in the backyard and adults lazily chatting away the afternoon. The Miya family reunions usually last for a few days, especially during the holidays, and for the first time in his life, Atsumu just wants it to be over. He yearns for the comfort of his own solitude, for the chance of breaking this arrangement to stop himself from getting hurt when Shouyou snatches something he never had away.

The afternoon goes on among food, drinks, and casual talking that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Throughout the last few weeks, he’s discovered he isn’t used to a lot of things, and one of them is wanting a party to be over. Miya Atsumu is the kind of man that enjoys being the centre of attention, the focus of every look and conversation that could further develop when he’s surrounded by people. Now, however, as one of his uncles interrogates him about all the details about the last match his team had with the Schweiden Adlers, he just wants to go to bed.

Atsumu pushes himself to smile and answer the questions with a carefree smile plastered on his lips. The gesture feels like saccharine coating his tongue, too sweet, too fake while trying to emulate something that he could have done easily if he wasn’t as uncomfortable as he is. His fingers are tense around the glass of expensive wine —courtesy of Shinsuke, no less— and the fingers of his free hand tap insistently against the hem covering his thigh in a nervous tick he thought he’d gotten rid of years ago.

If Shouyou was with him he would probably feel more comfortable.

The thought stops his explanation of the last play dead in its tracks. He blinks slowly, as if he’s taking in his surroundings for the first time ever, and his eyes roam all over the room looking for a certain mop of orange hair that seems nowhere to be seen. Atsumu presses his lips into a thin, pale line as his uncle tilts his head with a puzzled look on his face.

“Atsumu?” he asks, frowning slightly. It’s not usual for him to stop in the middle of a discourse about volleyball, especially when he’s explaining in full detail his set for that specific play. “Are you okay?”

“Me?” he pushes out, blinking owlishly. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just looking for Shoukkun.”

“Your boyfriend?” the man questions. His eyebrows arch on his forehead, deep wrinkles sinking into the skin. “Last time I saw him, he was talking to a guy with silver hair. One of your high school friends.”

“Shinsuke?” Atsumu breathes out. The mere thought sends a shiver of fear down his spine, the fingers around the glass of wine tightening their grip until his nails become a yellowish-white, almost bone-like.

His uncle shrugs.

“I don’t remember all of your friends’ names, but I assume it’s him.”

His uncle seems uninterested, and Atsumu can’t say he blames him. After all, he has no idea of the big, ugly mistake he made when he was eighteen, and he has no idea of the even bigger, uglier mistake he’s making at that exact second. He has no idea as to why Atsumu would rather Shinsuke and Shouyou not to be alone, talking, albeit all his apprehension and fear are completely unfounded; the universe has decided to put two of the best human beings on the planet together in the same space, and he sincerely doubts any of them would trash talk him.

And yet, he fears. Shinsuke might not say something about him intentionally, but people slip all the time. The idea that he assumes Shouyou knows all about his past causes the palms of his hands to get covered by a sticky, cold sweat that almost makes the glass of wine slide out of his grasp. What if Shouyou decides he’s an awful person? He would be correct if he decided to think that. He _is_ a terrible person after all. Using someone as a rebound because he had a huge crush he could not get rid of no matter how hard he tried? That’s, in fact, one of the worst things he has ever done. The second worst thing he has ever done is to take advantage of Shouyou’s disposition, pulling him into a fake relationship just to get a taste of what it could be if his feelings were reciprocated.

Atsumu knows that if Shouyou discovers the truth and asks the right questions, he’ll be honest. Not because it’s the right thing to do but because he also knows he can’t lie to Shouyou’s face. Granted he’s been doing it ever since they started this little arrangement of theirs, but if Shouyou decided to ask him about his true feelings, he’d spill the truth for him. Atsumu is a ticking bomb waiting to explode and blow up everything he currently has. All the current lies he’s been telling are basically omission, and albeit he won’t deny that is, in fact, lying, the method is quite different.

If Shouyou demanded to know the truth, he’d give it to him. It’s the only thing he can deliver, the only thing Shouyou deserves the most. And the one thing Atsumu is willing to do, no matter how much he would lose in the process.

“I—” he begins what feels like aeons later but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds of dead silence. Atsumu clears his throat and puts on a fake, charming smile on his lips, the taste of it covering the rich flavour of the red wine over his tongue. “I’ll go look for Shoukkun. If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him, would you?”

His uncle smiles, nodding with his head, blissfully unaware of the lucubrations unravelling and unfolding in Atsumu’s mind. Oh, to be a fifty-year-old man with an established family who doesn’t have to worry about his current crush —and, dare he say, _love of his life_ — and the guy whose heart got broken because of him talking to each other, standing on the same space.

Atsumu waves his hand towards his uncle as a way of saying ‘I’ll see you later’, smiling as if nothing’s happening. He then strides in between the guests, snaking his way between them, and gets pulled into a few conversations he doesn’t want to take part in. Absentmindedly, he flips the metaphorical switch on his brain to be able to give short answers, nodding or shaking his head if it’s necessary.

He’s being a self-centred prick and he _knows_ it, but he can’t help it. One of his worst fears is Shouyou knowing all the pain he caused in Shinsuke’s life, especially if he isn’t the one unveiling the facts. Would Shouyou listen to him if he decided to tell him all the truth? To sit down with him and tell him that he got into a relationship he really didn’t want, pushed by feelings he mistook for romantic but in the end, turned out to be just admiration and respect. If he told him he was confused because there were a lot of things in common between what he feels for Shouyou and what he feels for Shinsuke, except for the burning need of pushing Shouyou against the wall and make out with him until he can’t breathe. That he stayed in that relationship because _somehow_ he had managed to convince himself that later on, he would develop romantic feelings for Shinsuke.

Would Shouyou listen to his side of the story?

An unmistakable bark of laughter makes his head snap towards the source of the sound. His eyes comb the room, searching for the wild, orange locks he’s been so eager to find for what feels like centuries. When his stare finally falls on his target, a trembling sigh leaves his mouth, attracting the attraction of the people around him. They look at him with questioning eyes and he quickly rebuilds his nonchalant, carefree façade.

“I’ll be back in a few,” he informs, winking at the others before turning on his heels and walk as calmly as he can manage in Shouyou’s direction.

Shouyou smiles broadly when his amber irises find the hazel ones looking straight at him through the small crowd gathered around one of his youngest cousins. There’s a glass of champagne in his left hand and there’s a slight blush on his cheeks that tells Atsumu he’s been drinking quite a lot since the party started.

For a body so small compared to his own, Shouyou has one of the strongest resistances to alcohol Atsumu has ever seen. Probably a result of all the beer, the _caipirinhas_ , and god knows what other alcoholic drinks he grew used to in Brazil.

“Acchan!” he calls, a small giggle dripping from his lips while he takes a few long strides to meet him halfway. Atsumu stops in front of him with a questioning look on his face, trying with all his will to not look guilty, to not look like someone who’s dying to ask a question which answer he doesn’t really want to hear. “Are you okay?” Shouyou asks, blinking up at him. Something in his expression makes Atsumu think about a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Is he the truck?

“I couldn’t find you anywhere,” he whines, pushing all his worries into a dark corner of his mind. The alcohol is tingling in the tip of his fingers and in the middle of his thighs; the worst thing he can do now is to be the person he really wants to be. Said person would demand to know where he’s been, who was he talking to. And he hates that person with a burning passion. Not even as his boyfriend is he entitled to ask such questions. “I’ve felt _lonely_.”

So he plays it as a joke. And it turns out to work if the heartfelt laughter that leaves Shouyou’s lips is some sort of clue. His back relaxes visibly, all the tension dripping from the tip of his fingers like water running down a mirror.

“Don’t be such a child,” Shouyou jokes, chuckling slightly. “I was in the backyard. Nice place, by the way… I grew up in somewhat a traditional house, but we didn’t have this much space.”

Atsumu’s eyebrows knit in the middle of his forehead in a small frown. It occurs to him that he’s never asked anything about Shouyou’s life back in Miyagi. All his interest had been focused on his time in Brazil, on beach volleyball, on all the people he got to meet there. Shouyou came into his life as a teenager, but for some unknown reason, he’s never showed any curiosity about his life before he became an adult.

The monster that replaced his heart all those years ago demands to get its curiosity satisfied. To be fed with all the details he’s been missing out on.

“All alone?” he asks, pouting, wiping the frown out of his face as if it had never been there.

“Oh, no!” Shouyou chirps, smiling broadly. “I was talking to Kita-san!”

A wave of dense apprehension spreads across Atsumu’s chest. His entire world comes to a halt, pushing the sounds of his relatives laughing and talking and the sounds coming from out of the house —a siren blaring in the distance, the purring of the car engines going up and down the streets— out, isolating him from his surroundings. All that’s left is the quick, almost erratic, beating of his heart hammering in his ears with the unpleasant sound of the blood pressure.

“What—” he manages to say. The sound is strangled, almost as if he’s choking on it, and Atsumu clears his throat to get rid of the sudden lump that presses behind the back of his tongue. Judging by the smile Shouyou is still directing at him, Shinsuke didn’t slip. However, he still feels uneasy. “Why?”

“He wanted to ask some… stuff,” Shouyou answers. He waves his hand like he’s waving away Atsumu’s worries, and he wishes with all his heart it worked. It does not.

“What did he ask?” Atsumu questions. His voice carries as much unconcern as he can muster. Shouyou doesn’t seem to notice the small inflexion in his words, the way _ask_ seems to crack at the last consonant.

He smiles like a small, evil elf, and Atsumu’s heart skips a beat both because of the expression in his face and the meaning it could carry.

“It’s a secret, Acchan,” it’s all he says, taking his index finger to his lips to press it, stretched, against the pink skin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all from me for today!! See you all in next week's update!
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_)!


	9. Offended gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hello! It's Friday —finally— and I'm here two deliver two things: one, today's episode, and two, some news. 
> 
> I will finish updating this fic today. Throughout the day —probably for a few hours—, I'm gonna upload the two chapters left for the end of the fic. Yeah, you read that right. No particular reason, I'm just too excited to reach the end of this fic. 
> 
> I'm also sorry if I haven't answered all of your comments— I haven't been feeling well these last days and I didn't want to pressure myself. 
> 
> See you at the end notes of the last chapter!!

“I think,” Shouyou begins, giggling softly. Atsumu rushes forward to grip his fingers around his arm when the fear of him losing his balance and crashing face-first against the floor overcomes him. “I’m a little bit tipsy.”

Atsumu frowns slightly. He can’t complain about Shouyou’s _ingest_ of alcohol— he’s a bit drunk himself. What worries him, however, is the possible hangover.

“How much did you drink?” he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief. It’s not the first time he’s shared a few drinks with Shouyou; it’s usual for them to go every week to some izayaka around Tokyo and have a few beers. Coach Foster encourages them to share time as a team and being the responsible adults they are, they usually end up getting a bit tipsy while sharing stories about volleyball games and other teams they’ve been in. The difference with _this_ situation is that he’s never seen Shouyou as unstable on his feet as he is now.

“I probably drank the water of the vase without noticing,” he laughs, not minding the grip Atsumu still holds around his arm. Shouyou turns on his heels and flops down on the mattress, sighing in content.

“I’ve never seen you drink _that_ much,” Atsumu comments, letting him go now that he knows he won’t miss his step. “What’s the occasion?”

Shouyou hums softly in the back of his throat, seemingly deep in thought. His eyebrows knit in the middle of his forehead and it looks like he’s making a titanic effort to think straight.

Atsumu chuckles.

“I’m!” he begins, his eyes lighting up when he seems to find the exact words he was looking for. “I’m celebrating one of my friends’ engagements!”

Shouyou stares up at Atsumu, smiling so broadly that he’s sure his cheeks must hurt, and there’s a glint to his eyes Atsumu recognizes as pure, sheer happiness. The last time he saw him this happy was then they won their game against the Schweiden Adlers, when he managed to fulfil the objective he’d been pursuing ever since he was a fourteen-year-old boy.

Atsumu is way past his jealousy for Kageyama Tobio, but he still wishes he had the privilege of being Shouyou’s faithful rival. Still wishes Shouyou had gone as far as travelling to the other side of the word just to beat him.

Still wishes he had been given the gift of teaching him how to play volleyball.

“I think that’s just an excuse to drink,” Atsumu muses aloud, smiling malevolently. Shouyou pouts as his words, puffing his cheeks in the same way a child would do, causing Atsumu’s heart to skip a beat in the process. “Aw, c’mon, that was just a joke!”

“What’s that? I hear someone speaking but I can’t see anyone…”

 _Note to self: Shouyou-kun turns into a child when he drinks_.

“So you’re giving me the cold shoulder now, aren’t you? Outrageous.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“I will be as dramatic as I please, thank you very much,” he answers solemnly. “Especially since your cold shoulder lasts like, five seconds.”

“I’m drunk, don’t ask me to function.”

A smile tugs at the corners of Atsumu’s mouth. He sincerely doubts the entire world isn’t in love with the man sitting on his bed.

“Let’s go to bed,” he sighs, pulling down the zipper of his jacket. The sound seems to pierce the sudden silence falling upon them, Shouyou’s eyes trained on the trajectory of the body down the chain, following the motion as Atsumu’s fingers tug at the pull and the teeth creak softly. He stops when he notices the attentive stare fixed on him, feeling suddenly too self-conscious. More self-conscious than he has ever felt in front of him. “Shouyou-kun?”

Shouyou seems to snap out of a haze while he blinks owlishly at him. His eyes look glassy, his pupils blown-out before his eyelids cover them a few times.

“Mhm?” he hums.

“Everything okay? Need me to take you to the bathroom?” Atsumu offers, getting rid of the jacket to hang it on the coat rack beside the door.

“Ah! No, no, I’m fine. I got distracted… what were you saying?” he says, too fast, too high-pitched to be telling the truth. His fingers tap absentmindedly on his knee, a nervous tick Atsumu has learned to recognize throughout the months they’ve been teammates.

Atsumu tilts his head, munching on the inside of his left cheek to stop the smile forming on his lips. He recognizes that stare and although he wants to dwell on the raw desire that filled Shouyou’s eyes, he refrains from it. He _is_ drunk after all. He’s taking advantage of their deal, yes, but he would never take advantage of Shouyou’s lack of sobriety.

“I said it’s time for bed,” he repeats, smiling.

“Oh. _Oh_. Yeah!”

Turning their backs to each other, they slowly change into their pyjamas. The rustling of clothes fills the room and Atsumu thinks that this is a routine he can get used to; waking up to Shouyou every morning, listening to his soft humming while he gets rid of the clothes he wore during the day. Turning off the lights after he announces he’s ready, enjoying the soft slide of his body while he gets under the covers. His face being the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes for good, waiting for the next morning to repeat it all over again.

The night is as dark as the day before, except this time, Atsumu can see the stars shining softly against the black, velvety sky. The moon is still nowhere to be seen and as he waits for the snow that is most certainly to come, he wonders if things will be as peaceful as they are right now when they go back to Tokyo and there’s no need to pretend they’re dating.

Shouyou is dozing off; his breathing whistles softly in the way in and out of his nose, his chest rising and falling slowly with each intake of air. Atsumu, on the other hand, feels like he’s never been this awake before. He can’t get the look of desire on Shouyou’s eyes out of his head despite being well aware that whatever he felt while staring at him was prompted by the alcohol in his system. Only now that he’s technically alone since Shouyou seems to be asleep he allows himself to dwell on it, to feel the rush of adrenaline he should have felt when the events were unfolding right in front of his eyes.

Even if it’s just _physical_. Even if the only thing Shouyou desires to give to him is sex, Atsumu would gladly take it. It’s humiliating to be so conscious about how low he could go just for some instant satisfaction to a few of his needs.

Shouyou would never do it, though. The thing with being his friend while being in love with him, especially since the latter is a secret, is that Shouyou respects him too much to damage their friendship including sex in it.

Atsumu sighs. That’s just his luck.

His eyelids are getting heavier with each passing minute. The world seems to move slower around him, soft and round around the edges while he starts to bury his consciousness on the deep and comfortable nothingness of slumber. The wonderful moment when his brain starts to push all the sounds out, isolating him from the small creaking of the trees on the wind, the rustling of the leaves against the wooden floors out of his house. He sighs in content, scooping a bit closer to the comfortable warmth at his left, letting himself go with the flow of his tired brain falling into the sweet cadence of his own breathing.

That until a moan startles him.

Atsumu sits on the bed like there are springs attached to his back with a deep frown knitting in the middle of his forehead. He cranes his neck to the side, eyeing the wall right behind the headboard of the bed; there’s rage bubbling slowly in the pit of his stomach, going from a simmer to a full-on boil when he realizes _exactly_ what is happening in the room next to his.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he hisses to the darkness covering his room.

Shouyou stirs at his side, mumbling something that goes about the lines of him being too tipsy to deal with someone having sex in the other room, his hands reaching his face to rub at his eyes with his knuckles.

“Do you think they’ll take too long?” Atsumu asks in a whisper. His voice is loud enough for only Shouyou to hear since now he seems to be awake, too.

Shouyou chuckles.

“I hope not.”

“Are they for real?” Atsumu huffs, deeply annoyed. Here he was, finally falling asleep, just about to grasp the possibility of ignoring the ideas his brain had been conjuring the entire day since Shouyou’s conversation with Shinsuke, and his _horny asshole_ of a twin had to screw it all up. Which god did he offend so much to be subjected to the torture of hearing his own brother having sex?

“Well, they _are_ a couple, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou chuckles. He sounds more awake now and Atsumu is jealous of his ability to wake up so fast.

“Yeah, but…” he begins, sounding like a whining child in his own ears. He discovers he does not mind. “Do they have to do that _now_?”

“They’re drunk,” the other answers. He feels his shrugging under the covers, shaking the bed a little.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit tipsy myself. And I’m not trying to get into your pants,” Atsumu chuckles. He will never admit out loud that the idea _did_ cross his mind, instantly choked by the smartest part of himself. That is definitely something he would never do, it doesn’t matter how much of an asshole he is.

Shouyou chuckles at that, leaning over Atsumu’s body to flip the switch of the nightstand lamp. The yellowish light coming from the light-bulb partially covers the room, turning the shapes out of its reach into mysterious lumps that look too much like crouched creatures to not be unsettling.

Atsumu takes his eyes off of them and fixes them on Shouyou as he returns to his previous position, his right hand sliding underneath his cheek to lean his head against it.

“We can chat if you, huh— want to muffle the sounds,” he suggests, smiling softly. Whenever he smiles like that, only one of his dimples sinks into his cheek. The left one.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Atsumu agrees, imitating his position. It’s easier to look at him like that, his eyes focusing on the way the light coming from the lamp hits all the right spots, turning his face into a shadow study. He looks like a flame underneath the soft illumination, and Atsumu has never felt more like a moth in his entire life.

“Is there anything you’d like to discuss?”

The way he formulates his question makes a soft chuckle vibrate in Atsumu’s throat. It sounds like some overly formal way of starting a conversation that every participant knows will end up being about the weather. He really hopes their conversation doesn’t die with the mention of the possible snowy day they might have in a few hours. He really wants to go to the temple and watch the fireworks.

“ _Discuss_?” he repeats, arching his eyebrows. Shouyou’s cheeks blush slightly. “Sound like we’re having a fight— oh my, Shouyou-kun, are we having our first fight?”

Shouyou chokes on a bark of laughter that he muffles against the palm of his free hand.

“Atsumu-san!” he complains.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Atsumu laughs. He hears Shouyou’s soft whining, tries to record it in his memory to play it every night for the rest of his life. Then, as he does just that, he sees the chance of asking a question he’s always felt too scared to ask. “Well then… have you ever had a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”

“Nope,” he denies, popping the p. There’s a shit-eating grin plastered on his face as if the question alone is too stupid for him to be able to contain his laughter.

Atsumu purses his lips a little. He wasn’t expecting that answer. He had thought, amidst the naivety of someone who is still a romantic not matter how much of a jerk he pretends to be, to hear that Shouyou had had at least one or two relationships. It’s weird to know that he’s slept around so much without ever forming any meaningful romantic bond.

“So you’ve never had a romantic partner? Never gone on sappy dates or introduced anyone to your family?” he theorizes, mostly to calm the curiosity of the monster that long ago replaced his heart.

“Never,” he agrees. There’s something akin to sadness moving behind his irises like a flame burning underneath a dense layer of ice. “I was too busy with volleyball to have any relationships, you know? I never found anyone who was as invested as I am.”

Atsumu feels a pang of jealousy and one of annoyance stir in his stomach at the same time. Jealousy because he knows of someone who is still as invested in volleyball as Shouyou is, and annoyance upon finding out that even when he’s as obsessed with the sport as Shouyou is, he’s still not an option. It’s annoying because he’s well aware of that fact.

He ignores both of those feelings and hums.

“What about Tobio-kun?” he asks.

“Kageyama?” Shouyou answers, blinking in confusion. The idea seems to be more stupid than him having had a romantic relationship before, judging by the puzzled look he directs at Atsumu.

“Yeah,” he shrugs one shoulder, making it seem as if it doesn’t matter. It does matter. His curiosity is eager to be fed, to get all its questions answered in this lucky yet uncomfortable conversation. “You guys seemed very close. A lot of people thought you were dating.”

“Nah,” he retorts, frowning slightly. Yup, he considers the idea to be definitely stupid. “I never felt attracted to him.”

“But… you like guys, right? As in—”

“Are you asking me if I’m gay, Atsumu-san?” Shouyou interrupts. There are no inflexions in his voice; it’s almost like a declaration more than a question and Atsumu’s stomach flops when he thinks that he might have overstepped a boundary.

Maybe he pushed the limits way too far and what is about to slap him on the face is the metaphorical elastic band snapping.

“Yeah,” he breathes out.

Shouyou chuckles softly, the warm expression returning to his face, making the tension in Atsumu’s body disappear in the process.

“Yes, Atsumu-san. I’m gay.”

Atsumu hums, having nothing else to say about the topic. He knew Shouyou was gay, but he still wanted to hear it from _him_. Suspecting something on the verge of assuming it’s true is far from the actual truth, and now that he has his answers, he doesn’t need to ask anything else.

A particularly loud moan makes him cringe. He recognizes Akaashi’s voice. He doesn’t want to decipher _whatever_ he just called Osamu. He’s not that strong.

“Oh dear,” Shouyou complains, cringing too. “I’ll never be able to look at Akaashi-san in the eyes again.”

“I’m gonna kick my horny twin’s ass in the morning, you just wait,” Atsumu groans, pressing the tip of his fingers against his eyes until there are red stars dancing across his vision.

The other side of the wall gets pounded a few times at a rhythmical pace that sends a shiver of disgust down Atsumu’s back. He hears Osamu’s muffled groaning and he’s this close to knock on the surface to _at least_ ask them to put a pillow behind the headboard of the bed.

A different sound catches his attention. It’s hollow and dry, the sound of someone swallowing the thick saliva that pools in the middle of their tongue when they’re uncomfortable.

Shouyou looks slightly blushed, his eyes fixed on the space between them. His pinkie looks tense around the soft edge of his cheek.

“Are you okay?” Atsumu asks. His throat constricts a little.

“Yeah, it’s just a bit… awkward,” Shouyou whispers. His voice sounds strained like he’s trying to speak with a dry throat. It occurs to Atsumu that _maybe_ Shouyou is in love with his twin. If he did offend any god of any culture, that would be the best way of getting a sweet, torturous revenge on him. It would explain why he decided to help him in the first place— now that Osamu’s engaged to Akaashi, Atsumu is the closest thing he can get. “Atsumu-san? What’s wrong?”

He sounds worried now. Shouyou’s capacity of showing such a wide range of emotions in such a short amount of time will never cease to amaze him, especially because he was visibly uncomfortable a few seconds ago.

“I—” he begins. The idea of Shouyou being in love with his twin bounces inside of his skull, repeating itself in a loop; the words are starting to lose their meaning, becoming a whirlpool of sounds he is not able to recognize. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” he presses, amber eyes scanning Atsumu’s expression as if looking for the lie. He’s not okay, which means Shouyou will easily find it, but Atsumu is far beyond thinking about that. The only thing he can think about is the way Shouyou’s lips move as he speaks, the soft sound of his voice that is just above a whisper. Raspy, deep, rich like melted chocolate dripping over his skin, just a few inches from his mouth. “You can talk to me, Atsumu-san, you know—”

Whatever Shouyou was about to say dies on his tongue, barely registering in Atsumu’s brain as he lifts his free hand. His fingers trace the sharp edge of his jawline, the roundness of his cheeks until the fingertip of his thumb is sliding against the freckles dusted on his cheekbones like brown sugar. The rest of his fingers spread towards his ear and his hair, the soft locks tickling against the sensitive underside of the creases. His palm is scalding hot there where it’s pressed against Shouyou’s face and he feels the tension in his jaw moving beneath the heel of his hand.

He only realizes what he’s doing when he notices Shouyou leaning into the touch, almost pursuing the warmth coming from Atsumu’s skin and seeping through his. The gesture sends a wave of electricity through his nerves, goosebumps spreading through his arm, causing the almost invisible hairs to stand on end as the feeling makes its way up his limb and towards his heart.

One, two, three heartbeats. And then—

“We— we should try to sleep,” Shouyou whispers. His voice comes out raspy and deep like he hasn’t drunk a single drop of water in years. Atsumu retracts his hand as if Shouyou’s skin just burned him, clearing his throat while he tightens his fingers into a fist and presses it against his chest, over his heart, like he could stop the erratic beating of his pulse with it. “Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve and we’ll be up until late.”

“Huh,” Atsumu breathes out. “Yeah. Yeah! Night, Shouyou-kun.”

“G’night, Atsumu-san.”

* * *

Atsumu wakes up alone in his bed. His eyes flutter open and he winces when the pearly sunlight hits his retinas, making white stars dance across his vision; they turn red everytime his eyelids close, the change of colours making him feel slightly nauseous.

He realizes he feels nauseated because of the hunger burning in his stomach when a growl startles him slightly. It’s almost like a heart-burn pressing in the back of his throat while he groans to himself, stretching his arms over his head, enjoying the sound of his vertebrae popping one by one.

Shouyou’s side of the bed is cold, which means he’s long awake and gone god-knows-where. Atsumu frowns slightly; he doesn’t remember Shouyou telling him he was going for a morning run. Then again he owes him _nothing_. If he decided to go back home he’s absolutely entitled to; there is absolutely no need for Atsumu to know everything he does every second of the day.

Atsumu puffs out a sigh of annoyance. Here he is, being his drama-queen self. Shouyou probably sent him a text saying he was going for a quick jog to push the last drops of alcohol out of his system or something.

He proves his theory to be correct when he checks his phone and there’s a text from him saying that he went on his morning run. There is an unnecessary number of emojis attached to the short line of text and a picture of how the house looked when he went out: fluffy white covering the blue roof, stalactites of ice hanging from its edge and the edge of the railing that surrounds the house.

Atsumu takes a quick look outside, staring at the pearly white sky while trying to push himself to get out of bed and check to see if the backyard covered with a thick layer of snow. It was one of his favourite things when he was a kid. Now, however, the mere thought of abandoning the comfortable warmth from under the covers makes a shiver go down his spine.

He does it nonetheless because he’s an adult and he should behave like one. Atsumu regrets his decision the moment his naked feet press against the wooden floor underneath and the cold gives his skin a piercing kiss. A new shiver runs down his spine and this time it isn’t caused by his overly dramatic antics.

With a grimace, Atsumu walks towards the window and moves the blinds aside, his eyes fixing on the broad extension of white that has covered the entire backyard; the fence looks frosted as if someone had sprinkled it with water before the snowfall, and the sun draws small rainbows when its rays hit the bigger frozen droplets. There where he should find grass of a deep, emerald green, he only finds a pearly white that shines softly underneath the sunlight.

Shouyou went on a run when it’s _this_ cold?

His frown deepens. Is it possible that he fell in love with a masochist?

When he enters the dining room, his eyes find the rice cooker resting on top of the table and a small paper leaning against it. There’s an empty bowl, a pair of chopsticks, a cup, and an oval plate already waiting for him; a wide smile spreads on his face. His mother must have left his breakfast ready since he slept in and probably skipped the first meal of the day.

He makes his way to the table and unfolds the paper to give it a quick read. The calligraphy is stylized and pretty to look at, no doubt written by his mother. She instructs him to take a nutritious breakfast and not to give in to the temptation of just eating cereal or fruit, telling him that there is enough rice in the rice cooker and a portion of grilled salmon waiting for him inside the oven. His stomach growls at the mention of a traditional breakfast.

He eats in silence, looking through the window of the dining room, his eyes scanning the front garden as if he’s gonna find something different than the white, fluffy layer of snow covering everything out there. He does not want to admit he’s waiting for Shouyou’s frame to appear in his visual field because he would feel _too needy_. Which admittedly he is, but it’s too early in the morning to go over such a depressing thought.

He’s distracted when the front door opens and he hears someone cursing in Portuguese. A light chuckle leaves his lips as he hears Shouyou’s footsteps coming closer down the corridor, his orange mop of hair poking out of the door frame to look at him.

“Ah, Atsumu-san!” he greets, smiling sweetly at him. His cheeks are blushed, no doubt for the recent exercise, his hair a messy arrange of orange locks standing up in all directions like he went running against a blizzard. “Good morning! How’d you sleep?”

“Like a baby,” Atsumu answers, solemnly.

“I’m glad!” Shouyou chirps. There’s a glint to his eyes that Atsumu can’t quite identify; it’s not the one he seems to bear everytime he gets the rush of serotonin from physical exertion nor the one he gets when he manages to spike the ball to the exact spot he wanted. This is _different_ and it makes Atsumu’s throat constrict a little. “You were fast asleep when I left! Did you read my message?”

“Yeah. Nice pic, by the way. Really artistic,” he jokes, chuckling underneath his breath.

“Aw, shut up,” Shouyou retorts, rolling his eyes. He still has to swallow back a bark of laughter. “Finish your breakfast, you absolute child.”

“Yes, _mum_ ,” Atsumu says slowly, rolling his tongue around the last word just to make it sound as sarcastic as possible.

“I’ll hit the shower,” Shouyou informs, chuckling softly. “Are we gonna do something special today?”

Atsumu swallows the bite of grilled salmon he managed to take to his mouth before answering.

“We’re going to the shrine,” he says. “Wanna come with us?”

“Of course!” Shouyou chirps, excited. His eyes shine bright with a bad conceited energy that seems to buzz through him and Atsumu is surprised he isn’t bouncing on his spot like a puppy. “Be back in a few!”

With that, Shouyou leaves for the shower. Atsumu laughs quietly to himself as his footsteps grow gradually quieter, his eyes fixed on the spot where he was standing just a few seconds ago.


	10. A keychain

“Oi, you piece of shit,” Atsumu barks, looking at his twin like he’s the stubbed toe of his life. Osamu’s eyes give him a puzzled look, eyebrows arching in innocent curiosity as if trying to play dumb. Atsumu knows that he _knows_ what he did. “Try to keep your volume down when you’re doing the nasty with Akaashi, would you?”

“Oh,” he exhales, blushing furiously. “So you heard.”

“I’d be surprised if the entire fucking neighbourhood didn’t hear, ypu scrub,” he growls, rolling his eyes. It was because of his twin that he slept in and missed a chance to go on a run with Shouyou. “Is it so hard to keep it down?”

Osamu squints in his general direction. Something moves behind his eyes and Atsumu sees it coming even before Osamu himself finds the right words.

“Aw, is little ‘Tsumu jealous that I’m getting some while you’re not getting any?” he brags. “What’d you do for Shouyou-kun to ignore you?”

“Shut up.”

“So he _is_ ignoring you,” Osamu snickers. “Tough luck, bro.”

“He is _not_ —”

“Are you kids fighting again?”

His mother’s voice interrupts him in the middle of his snarky retort. Admittedly he’s been in a bad mood since he woke up later than most of the days; he’s gotten used to the professional athlete routine and although he would give his right leg to sleep in on Mondays, he knows he wouldn’t really do it since it consumes time he could be using on training. However, these are the _holidays_ we’re talking about, and Atsumu _abhors_ not getting at least ten hours of sleep when he’s on vacations.

Which he didn’t get. Because his twin was fucking his fiancé. At full volume. And he didn’t even put a pillow behind the headboard— Atsumu would deck him right then and there if his mother wasn’t looking at them with those hazel eyes that make him feel like he’s under a microscope.

“No, mum,” Osamu rushes to answer, smiling sweetly at her. “’Tsumu over here was telling me he got a nice night of sleep, weren’t you, ‘Tsumu?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles.

His mother looks at them with her eyebrows raised. It’s obvious that she doesn’t trust Osamu’s words, but for all it’s worth, she doesn’t seem to mind in the current situation. The camera in her right hand and the fact that they’re all gathered around the stairs that lead to the shrine are probably the reasons as to why she isn’t reprimanding them for fighting.

“Mmm,” she hums, almost sarcastically. Atsumu shuffles uncomfortably on his spot. “ _Anyway_ , Atsumu, where’s Shouyou-kun? I wanted to take a picture of you both.”

“Ah,” he breathes out, blinking owlishly at her. The last time he saw him, he was running off to buy some tea because, according to him, the tip of his fingers were freezing. “He’s buying some tea.”

“And you didn’t go with him?” she questions with a slight edge of disbelief sliding underneath her tone.

“We’re not joined by the hip, mum,” Atsumu jokes.

“Yeah, mum, both parties of a couple need some time alone. _Especially_ Shouyou-kun. Imagine having to put up with Atsumu and his dramatic ass.”

“Why you little—”

“Acchan, are you fighting with Osamu-san _again_?” Shouyou’s voice pipes in. His cheeks are blushed due to the cold that turns his breath into a puff of white steam, his nose barely poking out of the white scarf tied around his neck.

“He’s being mean,” Atsumu whines. Just for the sake of it. Just to get to hear Shouyou’s laughter.

Shouyou giggles a little before taking a quick sip from the polystyrene cup between his hands. The tea looks scalding hot if the column of steam that rises from the brim is some sort of clue.

“Ah, Shouyou-kun!” his mother chirps. There’s an ear to ear smile plastered on her face as she waves her hand in Shouyou’s direction, instructing him to come closer. “I was waiting for you! I want to take a picture of you and Atsumu!”

“Sure!” Shouyou agrees. His voice trembles a little when a shiver caused by the cold makes his teeth clatter. “Where do you want us to pose, Hanako-san?”

“Wherever,” she snickers, smiling from ear to ear. Atsumu squints at her, knowing all too well what her next words are gonna be. “I just need you guys to kiss.”

“K-Kiss?” Shouyou echoes weakly. “We’re… we’re in public, though…”

He chuckles softly and Atsumu can hear how uncomfortable he is by the way the sound cracks slightly. He knows why he’s worrying; Japan is not LGBT friendly and they are _both_ famous enough to have someone taking pictures of them to upload them on social media and basically bring havoc upon their heads. Pulling off a stunt like that could quite literally end their careers, and Atsumu might be deeply in love with Shouyou, but he wouldn’t risk either of their futures for one bad decision that could have been avoided.

“Mum, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Atsumu argues, frowning a little. His fingers twitch inside the pockets of his jacket. “It’s too crowded.”

“Aw,” she pouts, lowering the camera. “What about on the shrine? You know, some place secluded. I really want a picture of you… you make such a beautiful couple!”

Atsumu’s heart clenches. That’s something she never told him when he was dating Shinsuke. Sure, she looked happy that he _seemed_ to feel fulfilled and loved in that relationship, but not even once made a comment like that. And to hear it so freely given about a relationship that is fake makes his throat constrict.

“Yeah, we can do that. What do you think, Shoukkun?”

Shouyou startles as if he had zoned out.

“Yeah! Sure!”

The Miya family, Akaashi and Shouyou make their way up the stairs; Shouyou and Atsumu lead the way, used to strain their muscles on a daily basis, taking short breaks every now and then to wait for the rest of the group. Shouyou sips at his tea as they wait, blowing absentmindedly over the surface to cool it off a little, although Atsumu knows it won’t be long for that tea to be so cold he probably won’t finish it.

“Gimme some of that, my ass is freezing,” he says. He lends his hand out, waiting for Shouyou to hand him the cup of tea, and blinks surprised when he does it without even looking at him. “I was— I was joking.”

Shouyou chuckles softly, staring at him through the corner of his eyes.

“Your fingertips are red,” he simply affirms, shrugging. “You’re cold, so have some of my tea. I bought it for both of us anyway.”

“You bought us _one_ cup of tea?” Atsumu frowns slightly. This is too much of an indirect kiss for his heart to be at peace. Does Shouyou want to murder him here, in the middle of the last short of stairs left to get to the shrine? In front of everyone? Vicious, evil Hinata Shouyou. A smile connects Atsumu’s ears and he’s aware of how wolfish it looks. “We’re gonna kiss anyway, Shoukkun.”

“That’s not—!” he starts to argue, brows arching on his forehead in sheer disbelief. Atsumu has to push down his throat the bark of laughter that licks right behind his tongue and he swallows it with a sip of hot tea. “That’s not _fair_.”

“What, having to kiss me?” Atsumu questions, smiling from behind the rim of the cup.

“You know that doesn’t bother me,” Shouyou crosses his arms over his chest, puffing his cheeks. The gesture is half covered by the fluffy scarf around his neck and his mouth, his voice slightly muffled by the hem. “I meant _teasing_ me about it.”

“Let’s be honest here, Shoukkun, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t tease everyone at every chance I get,” Atsumu brags, giving him his tea back. Shouyou’s fingers wrap around the polystyrene cup as he puffs out a sigh of content at the warmth seeping through his skin. “Don’t expect a different treatment just because you’re my _boyfriend_.”

Shouyou squints at him, but Atsumu knows he’s smiling from behind the scarf.

“You think too highly of yourself,” he sighs, doing his best to sound disappointed. “I can’t believe it.”

Atsumu beams at Shouyou as he slings his arm around his shoulders, pulling him in so he’s pressed against the hollow of his ribs. The warmth coming from him seems to tingle through his nerves, making him feel both comfortable and extremely nervous. It’s a giddy feeling, very alike to be standing on the edge of a cliff with no parachute to stop the falling.

“Ugh, can’t you two keep your hands off of each other for five minutes?” Osamu groans when he and Akaashi finally reach them. His parents are a few steps behind, buzzing about something that Atsumu would really not like to now.

“Osamu-san,” Shouyou begins, blinking innocently at him. “How’d you spend the night?”

The blush creeping on both Osamu’s and Akaashi’s faces makes a wave of instant, deep satisfaction crash against Atsumu. Shouyou smiles like a child, playing dumb in front of the mess he just caused with a few words. The glint in his eyes, which Atsumu is able to see from his position when he cranes his neck slightly to wink at him, screams that he knows exactly what he’s doing. May the gods have mercy on whoever thinks Hinata Shouyou is an innocent, soft child.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

His parents reach them a few seconds later, giving Osamu and Akaashi questioning looks but refraining from asking the reason behind their bashful expressions. They finish climbing the stairs, surrounding the front of the shrine to a more secluded area just so his mother can get the picture she wants and therefore, be able to get her out of his back for a few hours more.

“Okay,” she begins, raising the camera to put it in front of her face one more time. “Do your thing, boys.”

“That would sound _so bad_ if you weren’t Atsumu’s mother,” his father snorts.

“Hush now, darling, I’m trying to add Shouyou-kun to the family album.”

Besides him, Shouyou huffs out a small chuckle. His fingers, intertwined with Atsumu’s, feel cold and small against his. They tremble slightly, and when Atsumu gives his hand a tug to close the distance between them and kiss him, he smiles in reassurance.

It’s just a kiss. They’ve done it before.

Except this doesn’t feel like all those times before. It doesn’t feel like the first time they tried, it doesn’t feel like the kiss Shouyou pressed against his mouth when they were standing on the tokonoma. This is _different_. It tastes like tea as Shouyou’s lips part beneath Atsumu’s, his tongue sliding across his lower lip as if asking for permission.

Atsumu gasps softly, eagerly opening his mouth to allow the intrusion. His tongue curls around Shouyou’s, savouring the aftertaste of the green tea he just finished drinking, his head tilting by sheer instinct as he chases the overwhelming heat coming from the cavity, the taste of his saliva, and the feeling of his lips moving in sync against his own. It’s electrifying, it makes him feel dizzy as his hands reach out to cradle his face in between them as if Shouyou is the most precious thing to ever exist on the planet.

A soft whine is muffled inside of Atsumu’s mouth and he swallows in impatiently. It tastes sweet like caramel coating his tongue, so sweet he feels like he’ll definitely get a cavity from it— and he doesn’t mind. He’s now desperately leaning in for more as Shouyou’s arms snake around his shoulders, pulling him down to tell him that _yes_ , he’s allowed to demand for more, he’s entitled to it, he _should_ be demanding it. As if asking him what’s taken him so long to kiss him like this, like Atsumu is a man dying of thirst in the middle of the desert and Shouyou is the first gulp of pure, fresh, crystalline water.

Atsumu is barely conscious about his family surrounding them, about the snap of the shutter of the camera. About the dog whistle that tries to invade the tight little bubble that has formed around them. He could care, and he _would_ if he didn’t feel like his brain has been replaced by wet cotton, like his entire synapse has been wiped out of existence by the mere touch of Shouyou’s lips against his.

“Whoa there, kids,” Atsumu hears his mother chiding jokingly. “We’re in public!”

Her words barely register on his brain; it’s like he’s underwater and she’s speaking from above the clouds. It feels like it’s been aeons when they finally break the contact, Shouyou’s eyes fluttering open to look at him with something he can’t, for the life of him, identify. It’s like a fire burning behind a thick layer of ice, fleeting, flickering like a light just about to go out.

“What did I ask about keeping PDA to the minimum?” Osamu complains.

Atsumu blinks owlishly, looking at his twin through the corner of his eyes. He’s not staring at him— no one is, actually. The only one who has her eyes fixed on them is his mother, hazel eyes that look so much like his own fixed on them with an undecipherable expression on her face. Like she knows something he doesn’t. Atsumu hates it when his mother knows something he doesn’t.

“Ah,” Atsumu exhales, taking a short step backwards. Holy _fuck_. He was not planning on getting carried away like that. He didn’t expect Shouyou to kiss him like _that_ either. For a moment there it felt like he was kissing him with the same desperation Atsumu has been feeling ever since he was seventeen. _Impossible_. “Haha… yeah. Uhm, sorry.”

“It’s okay!” his mother hums, shaking the camera in her right hand like she’s showing it off. “I got exactly what I wanted!”

“You’re a national threat, woman,” his father jokes, chuckling. His mother looks at him, faking the offence in her expression, parting her lips until they form a perfect ‘o’. “Tell me again why I married you?”

“Because you have a fetish with danger,” she retorts, solemnly. She’s as much of a drama queen as Atsumu is; she just likes to pretend she isn’t. “ _Anyway_ , what do you think if we go on separated ways for now? We can gather here a few minutes before midnight to watch the fireworks. What do you think, honey?”

“Sounds good to me,” his father answers. “I want to stuff my face with some chocolate bananas.”

“Are you _always_ thinking of food, you absolute scoundrel?”

Atsumu pushes his parents’ conversation out of his focus and turns his eyes towards Shouyou, who’s looking at him with a puzzled expression drawn on the features of his face. He’s still on the same spot he was when they were kissing, having been Atsumu the one to get out of his personal space —albeit reluctantly—, his fingers tapping nervously against his thighs.

“Shouyou-kun?” he asks in a soft whisper. “What do you want to do?”

“Me?” he gulps. His voice sounds raspy; it seems that the bridge between his mouth and his brain is irremediably broken. Atsumu tilts his head a little before nodding, biting at the inside of his lower lip. “Ah— what if we go to the fair? I would sell my left arm for some takoyaki.”

“The fair it is!” Atsumu cheers, clapping once before reaching out with his left hand, expecting him to take it to drag him along the stands.

He’s trying _so hard_ to ignore the insistent beating of his heart, the insidious voice in the back of his head that whispers and snickers about how that kiss was not a fake. And he so desperately wants to trust it, to give in to the temptation of his undying hope; he wants nothing more than to believe in that voice, to believe that Shouyou feels the same way he does. Why else would he kiss him like that? Why else would he allow Atsumu to be so demanding, to kiss him like he did?

This is not one of his one night stands. He can _feel_ it in the very marrow of his bones. And yet, when Shouyou smiles at him and he looks completely recovered, back to his cheery self, doubt and apprehension seem to spread their fingers across Atsumu’s chest like cold hands wrapping around his heart.

Maybe he _is_ one of Shouyou’s one night stands. If he is, if this is just the thrill of the chase for him, he would still take it thankfully. If this is the only thing he can manage to get from him— if this is the only thing Shouyou wants to give to him, he’ll treasure it for the rest of his life.

He’s desperate. He knows it. He’s sure that his heart will break if that is the case, but the momentary satisfaction makes the consequences look too small and unimportant for him to care.

Shouyou, Akaashi, Osamu, and Atsumu stroll through the fair, spending their money on stupid things they don’t need, buying more food than they can actually eat, and buying more turns for games than the ones they actually win. It’s comfortable despite the cold, despite the apprehension coiling in Atsumu’s chest, despite the weird atmosphere that seems to surround them whenever he stands too close to Shouyou. Despite the times he catches him looking at him with something akin to _longing_ in those amber irises he’s come to know so well.

He’s sure he isn’t imagining the electricity that seems to spark whenever they touch or are standing too close. Atsumu doesn’t know if it’s because of the kiss or something else, and all this overthinking is starting to mess up his good mood. Should they talk about it? Should he be the one to bring it up? Should he just let it go and pretend it was all part of the façade they’ve worked so hard to keep in front of his family and friends?

A few minutes after Shouyou has spent the last yen in his wallet, Atsumu looks at the screen of his phone to check on the time. They still have fifteen minutes to make their way back to the point where his mother wants them to gather and Atsumu is just about to comment on how they should get going when something hangs in front of his face, making him go cross-eyed for a few moments, an unpleasant dizziness pressing in the back of his head as he struggles to focus his stare on whatever is swinging before his eyes.

“Here,” Shouyou says, smiling. He shakes his hand and something Atsumu comes to recognize as a keychain tinkles softly. He blinks at the keychain for a few seconds before fixing his eyes on Shouyou’s face, opening his mouth to speak without managing to say anything. “This is for you.”

Atsumu looks at the keychain. It’s a yellow fox curled on itself, the shiny metal glimmering slightly underneath the soft glow of the lamps hanging above their heads. He reaches out and grabs it in between trembling fingers, the fingertip of his thumb sliding over the smooth, cold surface.

“Why?” Atsumu asks, blinking in confusion.

“I just felt like it,” Shouyou answers, shrugging. “What time is it? I think we should get going already.”

“Ah, yeah. Yes! We still have fifteen minutes left.”

“Should we tell Osamu-san and Akaashi-san?” Shouyou inquires, standing on his tiptoes to look for the couple. They seem to be nowhere to be seen judging by the small pout on Shouyou’s lips when he presses his heels back on the stone-paved road underneath his feet. “They’ll miss out the fireworks…”

“Knowing my brother, he’s already there,” Atsumu points out with just a bit of an edge of doubt sliding under his words. “Let’s get going. My mum’s gonna kick my ass if we’re late.”

“Isn’t she gonna do the same to Osamu-san if he’s late?”

“I’m willing to sacrifice him for my own well-being,” he sniggers, trying —and failing— to sound as solemnly as possible.

Shouyou scoffs.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Atsumu just winks at him before taking his hand to start making their way back to the place where they kissed a while ago. Shouyou’s fingers are slightly tense in between his, twitching every now and then as if he’s getting startled with every step he takes; he tries his best to ignore it, to not give it too much importance. Maybe he finally started feeling uncomfortable about their relationship and he doesn’t want to say anything so as not to hurt Atsumu’s feelings.

Even in the hypothetical scenario, Atsumu is grateful for his tact.

With all the people gathered for the same event, it takes them almost the entirety of the fifteen minutes to get to their reunion spot. By the time they make it there, Atsumu has said “excuse me” so many times that the words have lost all their meaning and he’s left wondering if his language will ever make any sense to him again. He’s also slightly angry at a group of old women who refused to let them pass because, according to them, they were entitled to stand wherever the hell they pleased.

Atsumu wanted to bark a few insults at them but he refrained. He has to remind himself constantly that he has an image to protect and a team to keep safe. He can’t slip and behave ‘poorly’ —as Meian would put it—, especially to his eldest.

What a bunch of bullshit if you ask him.

Despite all the trouble, Atsumu and Shouyou have managed to locate the rest of the crew a few seconds ago. His parents are somewhere near the fence that separates the forest from the temple, and Osamu and his fiancé are somewhere near the main entrance of the building, probably being all lovey-dovey now that they aren’t in Atsumu’s direct field of vision and he can’t pretend to puke at the mere sight of them showering the other with affection.

Not because he’s jealous. Of course not.

Atsumu takes a last look at his phone to check on the time and as soon as the clock hits midnight, he slips it back into his pocket and fixes his eyes on the sky, expecting the first firework of the night.

Like a flower growing at breath-taking speed, the first firework explodes with a dull sound that makes the children around them gasp. It flourishes in the middle of the ink-black extension above their heads, yellow and orange petals spreading quickly, dying a few seconds later like stars going out in the furthest galaxy from the earth.

“Atsumu-san?” Shouyou calls, almost timidly.

“Mhm?” he hums, his eyes still fixed on the sky, expecting the next firework.

“Did… did something happen?”

Atsumu’s head snaps toward Shouyou, a frown deepening in between his eyebrows. Shouyou looks almost apologetic, almost _hurt_ , and something inside Atsumu’s stomach recoils.

“Uh— not that I’m aware of,” he answers carefully. He misses the next two fireworks that turn the world into a mixture of purple, pink, green, and red. “Why?”

Shouyou sways on his feet, stuffing his hands in his pockets as if to hide the fact that his fingers are trembling. Atsumu saw them but he doesn’t mention it; there’s something _strange_ in Shouyou’s eyes, in his general expression and in the aura that seems to hang around him.

It feels like he’s miles away even though he’s just at an arms-length.

“Back then when you kissed me…” he begins, doubtfully, as if he’s trying to find the right words to say whatever he needs to say.

Atsumu’s heart skips a beat. Was he really that obvious? He was an _idiot_ if he really thought Shouyou wouldn’t notice the hunger he put on that kiss. If he overstepped a line, if he did _anything_ that made Shouyou feel uncomfortable—

He swallows around the lump in his throat. It seems like it’s growing bigger with each intake of breath and he feels like there’s a giant boot pressing him against the ground. The cold air pierces through his nose, freezes its way down his lungs and seems to crystalize ice needles inside of his ribcage. 

“That—” Atsumu begins, voice trembling. Another firework explodes in the distance, its dull sound making his ears go slightly numb. He can only hear the racing of his heart, the hissing of the air coming in and out of his nose. “That was just for the camera, Shouyou-kun.”

Atsumu is a liar. A liar and a coward. He had the chance to confess his true feelings right then and there, served on a silver plate, and he tossed it away with a smile and an edge of disbelief in his voice. As if he’s blaming Shouyou for connecting the dots.

“Oh,” Shouyou pushes out. “Okay.”

Atsumu smiles and turns his gaze back to the fireworks. They don’t look half as pretty as they did before Shouyou opened his mouth, but he pretends to be thrilled when a new set of colourful lights explode in the sky with a whistling noise.

“Atsumu-san,” Shouyou calls again.

“Yeah?” he answers without looking at him. He knows that if he does, his entire façade will crumble to pieces.

“I—” he beings. Shouyou clears his throat and tries again. “I’ll head back.”

“Want me to walk you there?”

“Ah, no. It’s not necessary. I remember the way back.”

He’s lying. Shouyou is an open book and Atsumu is pretty sure he cannot lie for the life of him. He turns around to argue, to try to convince him to let him walk him on his way back home— he wants to go home as well. His good mood vanished a few hours ago anyway. 

Shouyou isn’t there, however.

Sirens blare inside of Atsumu’s head, an unpleasant whistle reverberating in between his ears. Every sound around him —laughter, conversations, the fireworks— seems to be wiped out of existence as if sucked by a vacuum cleaner. The only things he’s able to listen are his heart, the whistling between his ears, and the _sirens_. It feels like he’s running out of air, every muscle in his body going stiff, his articulations locked in place as if the sockets of his bones have been filled with concrete.

He finally snaps out of it when someone crashes against him. He absentmindedly disregards their heartfelt apology before running in between the crowd, snaking his way in between a sea of bodies that seem to purposefully stand on his way to slow him down.

His heart is beating like crazy, pounding in his ears, against the inside of his ribcage. He can’t _breathe_. He’s a professional volleyball player and he’s out of breath after running for two minutes.

What a pathetic little thing he is.

The top of the stairs is almost empty, most of the people gathered outside the shrine or in front of the fence that marks the limit of the forest. As he pants for breath, searching frantically for that telling mop of orange hair, he feels his heart drop to his knees when he can’t find him.

Shouyou is _fast_ , faster than him. He’s always been. What if he’s already too far away to reach him?

Atsumu shakes his head, starting to run again despite the feeling of his legs muscles shrinking. It feels like the fibres are detaching themselves from the bones, lactic acid burning, screaming at him that he _should not_ do this without proper preparation.

He ignores it and starts going down the stairs, running as fast as he can manage.

Spotting Shouyou walking down the stairs, Atsumu picks up the pace. He almost misses his step on his way down and although he manages to recover his balance, his legs are still complaining about the strain. The back of his throat tastes like blood, the coppery flavour covering his tongue like old coins burning on his taste buds.

“Shouyou-kun!”

Shouyou stops abruptly, turning his head towards him with a look of disbelief shining in his eyes. _Glossy_ eyes, like there are non-spilt tears pooling in his lower eyelids.

Atsumu stops two steps down Shouyou’s position, turning on his heels to look at him intently. He searches frantically on his expression as if trying to find the reason as to why he seems to be crying, fingers twitching desperately; he _yearns_ for cradling his face in between his hands, to dry his tears and tell him that whatever he’s crying for isn’t important.

He does not do it.

“Ah, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou sniffles, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes. When his hands drop back to each side of his body, his cheeks are flushed like he’s going down with a fever. “It’s okay, I remember the way back—”

“What happens?” Atsumu interrupts. He doesn’t want to hear the lie, especially because Shouyou is terrible at lying. “What’s wrong?”

Shouyou opens his mouth to speak, but closes it a few seconds later without having said anything. His lips press into a thin, pale line, and his eyes roam over Atsumu’s frame as if he’s trying to commit it to memory.

His left hand grips the collar of Atsumu’s jacket as he leans in, pressing a furious kiss against Atsumu’s mouth. It’s open-mouthed and _hungry_ , consuming all of him, demanding for more in the same way Atsumu did when his mother was taking their picture. It’s brief, briefer than any kiss Atsumu has ever experienced, but it takes his breath away so quickly that he feels light-headed; his knees tremble slightly and he fears, for a moment, that they won’t be able to hold his weight any longer.

When Shouyou breaks the contact, Atsumu notices the tears that run down his blushed cheeks.

“S-Shouyou-kun?” he stammers, swallowing around the lump in his throat. This one, however, is filled with desire and hunger. He wants to kiss him again and again until he can’t breathe. “There’s no one around, we don’t need to—”

“I’m sorry, Atsumu-san,” Shouyou cuts him off, smiling sadly. “I can’t do this anymore.”


	11. Found in translation

_I’m sorry, Atsumu-san. I can’t do this anymore_.

Shouyou’s fingers are still gripping the hem of his jacket and his breath is still brushing against Atsumu’s dampen lips. His face is still painfully close and the tears keep falling. And yet, Atsumu can’t find anything to say.

There are a lot of things you can say about Miya Atsumu. Almost all of them go along the lines of how much of a self-centred prick he is, about how much of a cocky asshole he can be. About how childishly he can behave when given the opportunity.

He agrees to all of them. He would add a few as well, however; he’s obsessed with fatty tuna, is unable to sit straight on a chair, and he gets the burning need of copying everything he thinks it’s cool. There’s one thing, though, he never expected to say about himself.

He’s not usually rendered speechless. Not like he is right now.

His brain seems to be filled with white noise, crackling in the back of his head like gravel crunching underneath his feet. His muscles feel stiff when he tries to move, to speak, to do _something_ , but he finds himself unable to do anything else other than standing there, looking at Shouyou like it’s the first time in his life he lays eyes on him.

There’s a sad smile plastered on his face, the corners of his mouth curled into a gesture that rips Atsumu’s insides apart; the image in front of him seems to make his entire body go numb, his limbs paralyzed and his lungs stuck halfway through an intake of air. It feels like he’s experiencing the world around him through a glass, unable to touch directly, to hear nothing more than muffled sounds. He’s isolated inside of this solitary bubble, all by himself despite the fact that he can feel the grip on his jacket tightening.

The first thought his brain is able to produce is about disgust. Shouyou’s disgust, specifically. Maybe he’s grown tired of having to kiss him, to sleep in the same bed as him, to touch him so freely to keep up the masquerade. Atsumu understands. He wouldn’t like to do all those things with someone he doesn’t like in that way either. Somehow he had assumed that Shouyou wouldn’t have any problem with it; he used to sleep around a lot after all. That’s why Atsumu believed he wouldn’t mind doing this for him. Atsumu had assumed that given his past, Shouyou would be willing to go as far as needed to help him out with this, even if that meant having to touch him in the same way lovers do.

The idea makes a wave of nausea crash against Atsumu’s body; he feels disgusted at himself. How could he go as far as to assume Shouyou would do something like that just because of his past? The fact that he slept with a lot of guys doesn’t mean he wants to touch him, to _kiss_ him. Especially since he doesn’t see him that way.

Ah, yeah, there’s the big thing, the inflection point. He liked those guys at least physically. He probably doesn’t feel attracted to Atsumu in any way.

“If it’s become uncomfortable…” he begins. He doesn’t realize he’s spoken until his mouth closes, his lips pursing slightly and his teeth clicking under the strength imprinted in the motion. Putting his thoughts into words, even if it’s just a small portion, makes them real. The idea blooms and withers in front of his eyes and he’s too disgusted to keep his eyes trained on it.

Shouyou drops his hands and Atsumu sways slightly on his feet when he has to straighten his back suddenly. His balance tilts on its axis as he remembers that he can’t take any steps back; he’s standing on a stair, metres above the ground. He would probably break his neck if he misses his step.

An incredulous scoff goes past Shouyou’s lips. It’s like a hiss that whistles in his throat, vibrating in the space between them, echoing in the marrow of Atsumu’s bones.

“It’s not that, you idiot,” he hisses. He sounds tired, _exhausted_. Done with everything. Atsumu feels guilty— truth be told, he’s probably guilty of this whole thing. Shouyou has never behaved like this; so cold, so distant. As if he’s trying to rub salt on Atsumu’s wounds. “I love you, can’t you see?”

Atsumu opens his mouth to say something, _whatever_ , but closes it a few seconds later without saying anything. Shouyou’s words seem to float over his brain amidst a confusing curtain of smoke, his metaphorical fingers unable to grasp them no matter how hard he tries. The sounds seem to curl in an unintelligible cacophony, repeating themselves without giving him any chance to register that yes, those sounds are indeed words and therefore, they hold meaning.

Shouyou’s eyebrows arch slightly, tiny wrinkles sinking into the tanned skin of his forehead. A disappointed smile curls up the corners of his lips as he sighs as if he had been expecting something else rather than Atsumu’s absolute incapacity of speaking Japanese.

He inhales sharply, letting the air go with a sibilant sound that is too alike to that of a snake to make Atsumu feel comfortable. Then, he opens his mouth to say something:

“It’s okay. We’ll—”

“You _what_ ,” Atsumu interrupts, finally able to understand his words, finally able to use his own mouth to put his thoughts into speech.

Atsumu’s question makes whatever Shouyou was about to ramble stop dead in its tracks. His eyes fix on Atsumu’s face, drawing the edge of his features like he’s trying to copy them into a paper only he can see. When amber irises meet hazel ones, he stares at them intently as if looking for a lie Atsumu knows beforehand he will not find.

They both look at each other, dumbfounded, mouths agape. Atsumu’s fingers twitch at each side of his body, trembling slightly when Shouyou’s words repeat in his brain all over again.

_I love you, can’t you see?_

Shouyou presses his lips into a hard line; the pink skin loses its colour, being replaced by a yellowish-white that doesn’t look harmonious on his face. He shoves his hands inside of his jacket pockets and Atsumu can see the way his fingers move incessantly inside of them as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Tell me,” he begins after what feels like hours in silence. His voice comes out hoarse and barely above a whisper; it sounds like his throat is sore as if he hadn’t spoken in millennia. “Why else would I accept the arrangement of fake dating you?”

Atsumu feels his words like a punch to his gut.

“Because you wanted to help me?” he ventures, insecure. “You’re a good person and my friend.”

Shouyou snorts in disbelief.

“You think too highly of me, Atsumu-san,” he murmurs, averting his gaze. There’s a faint blush painting his cheeks and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the cold or the situation unfolding in between them. “Do you really think I’m that much of a good person to subject myself to a relationship I don’t want to be in just to save your ass?”

He doesn’t put any cruelty into his words. It’s more of a statement than a question like he’s talking about a fact rather than the possibly mistaken idea Atsumu had about him. It still pains Atsumu a little; to think that he’d idolized Shouyou to the point where he saw him incapable of wanting things for himself, a point where he couldn’t fathom Shouyou being selfish.

What had he been thinking? Shouyou _is_ selfish. People —and Atsumu included— tend to ignore it because he’s like the sun. But they forget how cruel the sun can be.

Still, when Atsumu tries to reanalyse his words, he doesn’t find any trace of cruelty in them. He’s not berating himself nor Atsumu; he’s stating what he believes to be true.

“I—” Atsumu begins, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of the water.

Why is he trying? Shouyou has proven him wrong; Atsumu’s idea about him was mistaken. Why does he keep holding on to something he now knows it’s not a reality?

“Do you really think a friend would be willing to _pretend_ to date you? Does it sound logical to you?” he asks. His voice is soft, almost a caress against his skin, but Atsumu feels them sting like drops of acid splashing all over his naked body.

“I thought—”

“You could’ve solved this problem if you’ve just spoken to your mum,” Shouyou interrupts, a tender smile replacing the almost sardonic one he’d bore while Atsumu tried to make sense out of his love confession. His eyes turn to look at him and although he still feels hurt by his words, Atsumu finds a deep affection glimmering behind his irises. It feels like he’s finally been able to gaze behind the thick layer of ice that had been covering that _something_ he so eagerly wanted to find. “It was as easy as that, Atsumu-san. Sitting down with her, asking her to stop asking about your romantic life. She would’ve understood. And deep down you know it.”

Atsumu clenches his teeth. His mother isn’t an easy person to be around— she’s as dramatic as him, as pushy as he is. But Shouyou is somewhat right: he just needed to _ask her_ to stop. He used his fear of hurting her to take advantage of Shouyou’s disposition.

“Then why?” he breathes out. It seems like his soul leaves his body with that whisper, and it takes all of his willpower to not crumble right then and there. His knees tremble, his fingers twitch, the keychain in the pocket of his jacket feels like it weighs tons.

“Atsumu-san,” Shouyou giggles. It’s not a happy sound. “I agreed because that was the only way I could have you— even if it was just for a while.”

Each word that leaves Shouyou’s mouth seems like a slap to his face. Atsumu is hearing _exactly_ what he wanted to hear, what he had yearned for throughout seven years of his life. Shouyou is spilling all his feelings for him right in front of his face, so close to him that he could just reach out and touch him. Why does it hurt so much to hear him say all those things, then? Atsumu feels like Shouyou has just ripped his heart out of his chest, his fingers tightly wrapped around the bloody muscle to crash it in between his hands until there’s nothing left of it; nothing more than a disfigured mass.

“Shouyou-kun—”

“It’s okay,” he stops him. He smiles at him, a saddened smile, but Atsumu is reaching his limit. “You don’t have to—”

“Stop interrupting me,” Atsumu demands, frowning. His face feels hot and his hands feel cold as if his blood is unable to reach his limbs. There are so many things he wants to say, but for some reason he doesn’t quite understand, Shouyou doesn’t seem to want to hear them. _Tough luck_ , he thinks, his fingers curling into clenched fists, _he’ll have to listen to me whether he likes it or not_. “I have stuff to say too, you know?”

“Oh. S-Sorry,” Shouyou apologizes. His eyes open a little, making him look like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck.

Atsumu exhales. He feels suddenly _so tired_. He feels like he could sleep for days.

“Remember when we met?” he inquires. He looks at Shouyou intently, expecting for his nodding before he continues. “During your first year.”

“When you promised you’d toss to me one day,” Shouyou assents. His voice trembles and cracks in the middle of his sentence, as if the word ‘toss’ hurt him.

“I’ve been in love with you since I saw you jumping for the first time,” Atsumu confesses.

It occurs to him, as he watches Shouyou’s mouth fall open in surprise, that they both entered this “relationship” of theirs with the same objective in mind, wanting exactly the same thing. They both wanted to have the other, even if it was a fake, even if it was just for a while. They were desperate enough to agree to something they both were well aware of how much it would hurt when it ended. Just to get a glimpse behind the curtain, a single taste of what could have been if they had stopped dancing around each other a lot sooner.

Atsumu knows this whole situation is ridiculous. He wonders how could he be so blind; Shouyou’s reaction to him, the disposition of faking a relationship just to get him out of a problem with an easy solution, the way he always seemed to give in so easily to every demonstration of affection even in private. Shouyou had never refused any of those things, going as far as ditching his mother and his sister to spend time with Atsumu and his family during the holidays, exposing himself to the anxiety of fearing the slight chance of Atsumu’s mother not liking him.

Was he really that blind?

“What did you and Shinsuke talk about the other day?” he blurts out.

Shouyou blinks, slightly confused.

“He— he asked me how you were doing,” Shouyou stammers, chewing at his lower lip. “He asked me how our relationship was going, too.”

“Didn’t he tell you anything else?”

“Not that I remember,” he answers.

“So he didn’t tell you about me using him to forget _you_ ,” Atsumu exhales, trembling. He doesn’t want to blame Shouyou for the things he did when he was young and naïve; the only one at fault is Atsumu. His words aren’t aimed to hurt: they’re aimed to _reveal._

By the look Shouyou gives him, one where Atsumu can’t find any trace of disgust or disappointment, he understands.

“No,” is the only thing he says, straightening his back. His gaze fixes on Atsumu and he feels like Shouyou is as tall as the sky, bigger than him in every sense. Atsumu hopes this revelation doesn’t change the way he sees him, the idea Shouyou has of him, even when his eyes are telling him otherwise. Fear, Atsumu has learned throughout the years, seems to grow wherever it finds best even if it lacks the required foundations to do so. “But if you’re trying to blame me for it…”

He leaves the sentence unfinished, letting it hang delicately in the air between them. The implications behind his words make a shiver run down Atsumu’s spine. It feels like Shouyou wants to make sure and Atsumu knows he would do the same in his position.

“I would never,” Atsumu frets. “You’re not at fault for my stupidity.”

Shouyou’s shoulders relax visibly, losing the tension that made him look like the string of a violin just about to snap.

“I used people, too,” he sighs, looking ashamed of himself now. Shouyou clears his throat as if there’s a lump there that doesn’t allow him to speak or breathe properly. “Every guy I slept with— I always pretended they were you. Because I thought you would never look at me like that.”

Atsumu chokes on his own spit at that. He knew Shouyou used to have a lot of one night stands, every day a different guy ready to give him whatever he asked for. The way they looked at him when he wasn’t looking was the same way Atsumu has always looked at him and granted, he felt sad for them— but he was sure they knew what they were getting into. To be used once by Hinata Shouyou, doesn’t matter how quickly he disposed of them, was a privilege. A privilege even Atsumu had yearned for.

But to know that Shouyou always pretended it was _him_ the one touching him, _him_ the one kissing him, _him_ the one making him scream—

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he manages to say.

“Why didn’t you?” Shouyou shoots back, giving him that smile that always makes Atsumu’s heart leap to his throat and his stomach flop.

“You got me there,” Atsumu chuckles. He feels better now, a bit lighter and a lot happier than he did when he started running down the stairs. It feels like an overwhelming weight had been lifted off of his shoulders and he straightens his back just to see if the vertebrae pop as if the strain had been real and not just a metaphor. “So what do you w—?”

Shouyou interrupts him by pressing his mouth to his, his hands cradling Atsumu’s face softly as if he’s the most precious thing to grace the earth. A surprised gasp muffles against Shouyou’s lips, the warmth coming from his palms seeping through Atsumu’s skin, tingling in every single one of his nerve ends, electrifying his whole system. It pushes him to wrap his arms around his middle, pulling him against his body until he has to take a few steps forward, going down the stairs so that Atsumu has to tilt his head to deepen the kiss.

His fingers spread across the small of Shouyou’s back, tightening his hold as his mouth opens and his tongue slides across his lower lip. Shouyou hums in approval, eagerly parting his lips, his tongue finding Atsumu’s midway and curling around it, sliding over and underneath and Atsumu shivers at the overwhelming heat that overcharges his senses.

His hands travel from Atsumu’s face to his jacket, his fingers gripping at the hem, _pulling_ from it with a greediness that takes his breath away as if the almost inexistent distance in between them is still too much for him to bear with it. The idea makes Atsumu’s heart race inside of his chest— to be desired in the same way he desires is something he never thought he would experience. Especially coming from the man moaning against his mouth, trembling in between the circle of his arms.

When they part, panting, lips swollen and glistening from saliva, Shouyou looks at him with half-lidded eyes. His hands are still gripping the hem of his jacket and Atsumu’s are still holding the small of his back, his pinkies grazing over the edge of his jacket.

“Wanna get out of here?” Shouyou asks in a sultry voice that sends a shiver down Atsumu’s back. His eyes burn with lust and Atsumu can see his reflection in them— his look exactly the same.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

Shouyou’s naked back shines softly with the sweat coating his skin like it’s embedded with tiny diamonds. The light bathing the tanned extension seems to explode in small rainbows, and Atsumu tries not to smirk upon the sight of the hickeys and the bite marks he left all over the broad expanse of his shoulders and the column of his neck, but he fails miserably. Shouyou’s skin looks beautifully red in some places and he can’t wait to see the purple that will blossom there where he bit and nipped, there where his fingers gripped until he left marks with the shape of his fingertips.

His arms are crossed underneath the pillow, his cheek pressed against it and his eyes are fixed on Atsumu’s face. Probably enjoying the mess he did, too— the bite marks, the hickeys, the scratches that begin at the curve of his shoulders and find their ends in the middle of his shoulder blades. He’s sure as hell they will sting when he steps under the shower spray, but as he comes down from the post-orgasm bliss, he can’t bring himself to care.

Shouyou moves his hand, sliding it from under the pillow; it hangs a few centimetres above Atsumu’s skin and then the tip of his middle finger presses slightly over the pit of his stomach and runs down, outlining the muscles of Atsumu’s stomach.

Atsumu shivers at the feeling of Shouyou’s calloused fingertip sliding across his oversensitive skin. The muscles underneath the almost hesitant touch tense and Shouyou’s eyes follow the motion and the way light reflects on the half-dry beads of sweat like dewdrop on the petals of a flower.

“How do you feel?” he asks. His voice is hoarse and tight and Atsumu knows it’s because of the unintelligible moans and screams that fell from his lips. He can relate— his own throat feels constricted and sore, almost bruised.

“Are you asking me if I’m ready for round two?” he jokes, smiling dumbly at the idea. He wouldn’t mind doing it again; he’s well aware, however, that his family must be about to come back. He does _not_ feel comfortable having sex with them around.

Shouyou’s eyes glimmer with interest and Atsumu can almost see the way he stomps on the idea until it lies dead underneath his feet. He snickers at the internal struggle reflected in his irises, at the sudden tension on the muscles of his back. Shouyou seems to ignore the sudden flame of desire that burns within him, guiding his mind through another path while he frowns slightly.

“I mean, yeah, I would like that,” he sighs, almost defeated for having been caught red-handed, but he smiles sweetly at Atsumu nonetheless. “But that’s not what I meant.”

Atsumu turns on the bed, lying on his left side to look at Shouyou. He leans his cheek against his knuckles, arching his eyebrows ever so slightly as if telling Shouyou to go on and explain his point.

“What do you mean, then?” he questions after a few seconds of silence. Atsumu shivers when the sheet slides down his thigh and his damp skin makes contact with the cold air in the room.

He forgot to turn the heat on.

“Well, if you ask me,” Shouyou begins with a soft hum. It sounds almost like a cat’s purr, the sound sultry and satisfied beyond what should be legal. He looks so satiated, so utterly happy, that Atsumu can’t help the giddy feeling that makes his stomach quiver. _He_ made that. He put that smile on Shouyou’s face, he made his eyes look like he’s high on some exquisite drug, “I’d say I’m in cloud nine.”

“Why thank you,” Atsumu grins. Shouyou huffs out a little giggle and he has the urge of diving in for a kiss. He realizes, with his heart skipping a beat, that he doesn’t have to hold back. He is _allowed_ to do it— and so he does, extending his hand to outline the high of Shouyou’s cheekbone, leaning in to press a chaste kiss against his lips. He hums in approval, almost inviting him to continue, to keep doing that just to see where it’s gonna end. They both know what will happen if Atsumu deepens the kiss, and he’s so tempted to just let himself go that it’s almost painful to retreat. “I tried my best.”

“I can tell,” Shouyou whines, pouting. What he really wanted to say goes along the lines of ‘why did you stop’, but Atsumu pretends he doesn’t realize. “So? How do you feel?”

“Confused,” he answers right away. Shouyou was definitely not expecting that word as an answer and he arches his eyebrows, encouraging him to elaborate. “How long has it been since you wanted to do _this_?”

Shouyou blinks slowly, almost owlishly, for a few seconds. Then there’s laughter bubbling in his chest, dripping from his lips like honey.

“ _That’s_ what you’re confused about?”

“Give me a break, I’ve been a pining mess for seven years.”

His laughter stops upon hearing that; it seems like the reality of how long Atsumu has been waiting for him has just landed in his brain. His eyes roam over his frame, over the features of his face, almost analysing him, and Atsumu feels like Shouyou can see every particle that forms him. It’s more intimate than sex itself and for once, he doesn’t feel like he needs to cover anything. He’s willing to lie there, bare and exposed for Shouyou to see everything.

It tastes like freedom.

“A month after I got into the team,” he confesses in a gentle whisper. The hand that had been running across his stomach finds Atsumu’s waist and the same finger that outlined his muscles drags over the slight curve and upwards, following the edge of his ribs until the fingertip finds Atsumu’s chest. Shouyou’s palm presses in the middle, the fingertip of his middle finger pressing slightly on the valley between his clavicles. “The first time I tossed to you.”

Atsumu remembers that moment, can still savour the feeling of spiking such a delicious set. It was like all the feelings he had harboured for Shouyou paled compared to the sheer love and adoration that struck him right then and there: Shouyou was a whole set of weaponry and Atsumu could use him as he pleased on the court. And he was the perfect mix between the two things he loved the most in the world— Hinata Shouyou and volleyball.

The hand that isn’t holding his head upright covers Shouyou’s, his fingers sliding in between his to guide them to his lips. One by one, Atsumu kisses each knuckle and each fingertip, smiling against his skin when Shouyou giggles softly.

“You’re like a monster,” Shouyou keeps going, smiling at him. There’s hunger in his eyes, as if that small, almost innocent contact had lit up a fire within him. Atsumu wants to feed it, wants to be consumed by it, but he also wants to hear whatever he needs to say. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. You were from different to the guy I met at Nationals, yet still the same when you were standing on the court… and an absolute dork.”

“Ouch,” Atsumu pretends to be hurt, frowning deeply as he constructs the best mask of pain he can manage.

“I love you for that,” Shouyou chuckles. “Whenever I think I got everything about you noted, you come up with something new— it’s _exhilarating_.”

Atsumu doesn’t want to admit it, but he blushes deeply. _That_ is something no one had ever said about him. And for Shouyou to be the first one to do it feels like a miracle wrapped in a pretty little bow. Just for him. These words are for his ears only and he does his best to engrave them into every single one of his cells.

Hinata Shouyou, the most precious human being to ever walk the earth, thinks that his existence is exhilarating.

“You’re so sappy,” Atsumu pretends to complain, laughing at the pout Shouyou directs at him.

“I just confessed my undying love for you, and this is the answer I get?” he sasses, rolling his eyes. “You’re a mean one, Atsumu-san.”

“None of that honorific thing,” Atsumu whines. “Call me Acchan or ‘Tsumu, or just Atsumu— but I don’t want to hear any of that ‘san’ crap. Makes me feel old.”

“Your crush is old.”

“My _undying love_ is old. There’s a difference, Shoukkun,” he retorts, solemnly. “Besides, nothing you can say makes _my_ reason to fall in love with you any smaller.”

“Oh? How come?”

“I fell in love with you because you’re like the sun,” he explains, grinning widely at the blush that creeps its way up his cheekbones. His eyes shine brightly with surprise like he didn’t expect to hear something like that and Atsumu’s wolfish grin spreads a little wider over his lips. “Gentle and soft, but still capable of burning everything to the ground.”

Shouyou hums, almost as if to acknowledge what Atsumu just said. He seems to be at a loss of words and Atsumu waits, letting his eyes drift from Shouyou’s to the rest of his face, taking a quick look to the tear marks on his cheeks. Overstimulation did that. _He_ caused the overstimulation.

“Does it bother you?” Shouyou asks a few moments later. The silence around them is comfortable and welcomed— Atsumu feels worn out, bone-tired. His entire body aches in a good way, and he wants nothing but to wrap himself around Shouyou and sleep the rest of the night away.

“The what?” he questions, slightly confused.

“Knowing that I slept with a lot of people,” Shouyou explains. He seems ashamed as if saying it aloud makes it worse than it already is. Atsumu, however, doesn’t think it’s a bad thing. He doesn’t think Shouyou’s value as a person decreases just because he likes sex. “Pretended they were you just to scratch my itch.”

“Nah,” he sighs, letting go of Shouyou’s hand to trace the curve on the small of his back with the tip of his fingers. He shivers beneath the contact and as Atsumu spreads his fingers over the two small dimples at the bottom of his spine, he thinks that Shouyou’s waist is small enough for his hands to surround it and his middle fingers to touch behind. “That just means I get to experience all the things you’ve learned.”

That makes him laugh, a heartfelt chuckle leaving his lips. It feels like seafoam and feathers grazing over his skin, soft and refreshing and all kinds of promising. It’s like Shouyou is vowing to give him more of that, tempting him for him to scoop a little closer and take whatever he wants from him.

“You’re horny,” he jokes.

“Of course I am,” Atsumu snorts, giving in to the temptation of going a little closer, gathering Shouyou in between his arms to press his body against his. Shouyou’s ankles hook with Atsumu’s, his nose pressing on the crook of his neck as he wraps one arm around his middle. “Have you taken a look at the mirror? You’re like, super-duper hot.”

“Right back at ya,” he giggles. His breath ghosts over Atsumu’s skin, the rumbling of his laughter vibrating through the marrow of Atsumu’s bones.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers against his temple. Pressing a soft kiss there, shivering slightly when the soft, dampen locks tickle at his lips, Atsumu tightens his hold around Shouyou like he’s trying to convince himself that he’s real, the hissing of his breath in his nose a constant reminder that he is, in fact, completely real and absolutely his. “You won’t have to pretend anymore.”

Shouyou goes stiff in between his arms and Atsumu fears he’s said something wrong. He’s about to apologize when Shouyou relaxes in his grasp, a deep sigh of content leaving his lips. He muffles a hum against Atsumu’s neck, his lips pressed to his Adam’s apple.

“You don’t have to wait anymore, either,” he whispers.

Atsumu smiles. Both pretending, both waiting. And in the end, every piece fell in its place thanks to his mother’s pestering.

He should thank her after telling her the truth. She deserves to know after all.

Shouyou yawns, letting out a sound akin to that of a kitten.

“Let’s go to sleep,” Atsumu murmurs against his temple. Shouyou nods, stretching his arm towards the lamp on the nightstand and with the flip of a switch, darkness devours the room and them with it. “G’night, Shoukkun.”

“Night, Acchan.”

Yeah, he will talk to his mother. Tomorrow morning, after his body has rested and the hickeys on his neck have blossomed like purple flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last episode!! Wohooo!!
> 
> It's been a pleasure to share these weeks with you all. Thank you so, so much for reading and leaving kudos and comments. They've made me extremely happy. 
> 
> Hit me up on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_) and see you all on a next fic!

**Author's Note:**

> So? How was it? :3c I take no responsibility from now on, by the way. You might want to kill me. Or not. Who knows. Definitely not me.
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eli_tan_) and see you this Friday! 


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